


Jared's Ghost

by lyryk (s_k)



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 14:07:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_k/pseuds/lyryk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jared, a forensic pathologist, disappears in war-torn Sri Lanka during a human rights investigation, Jensen has no choice but to go after his estranged boyfriend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Very loosely based on the book [Anil’s Ghost](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil%27s_Ghost). Written for [spn_j2_bigbang](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com) 2013\. Huge thanks to the organisers and to my fabulous beta [applegeuse](http://applegeuse.livejournal.com). <3 Many, many thanks to the wonderful [evian_fork](http://evian_fork.livejournal.com) for all the lovely artwork, and for being fantastic to work with. Be sure to check out the awesome [art post](http://evian-fork.livejournal.com/138950.html)!

‘In diagnosing a vascular injury,’ said Dr Wilcox, ‘a high index of suspicion is necessary.’

That was the sentence that had made Jensen notice the tall kid with the messy hair. When Dr Wilcox, the guest specialist for the day, made his statement, there was a quiet snicker of amusement. Jensen glanced around at the students—most of them interns, and a few researchers—and quickly found the culprit, who was still looking down at his phone, grinning, oblivious to the fact that Dr Wilcox had stopped speaking and was now glaring in his direction. Wilcox had a reputation for pedantry, but as the only attending physician in the room, Jensen would have to play the disciplinarian.

He glanced at the name on the tall guy’s tag. ‘Something funny, Dr Padalecki?’

Padalecki quickly schooled his features into a poker face, his dimples vanishing. ‘Sorry. Got distracted for a moment.’

Wilcox had unceremoniously asked Padalecki to leave. To the kid’s credit, he was already halfway out the door before Dr Wilcox had finished speaking, declaring that he’d been bored anyway.

Jensen had run into him in the staff cafeteria at lunch, staring down into a paper plate that seemed to consist of little more than a pile of wilted lettuce.

‘You okay?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Padalecki looked up, saw who it was, and brightened almost immediately. ‘I will be if you join me,’ he said, gesturing to the chair across the table, and Jensen grinned at him and took a seat. They ended up talking for thirty minutes about everything and nothing in particular: how Jared really wanted to finish his research in forensic science, how the Rangers were never going to have a good season, how Jensen always got the cheese-and-potato sandwiches for lunch because nothing else on the cafeteria menu was edible.

Jared was older than Jensen had assumed, twenty-nine years old and in the last stages of his research for a PhD in forensic pathology. He’d ended up eating most of Jensen’s fries and half his sandwich, making up for stealing Jensen’s food by sharing his strawberry milkshake with him. It was pretty good, really, but Jensen had teased him mercilessly for ordering a milkshake; what sort of grown-up did that, anyway? Mentally, he’d already been marveling at himself for his familiarity with Jared. He was hardly the type to spare strangers a smile of courtesy, let alone share his thirty-minute alone-time at lunch with them, and here Jared literally had Jensen eating out of his hand. There was just something about him.

 

 

Now, more than a year later, Jensen remembers that day, remembers how much he’s missed Jared for the last six weeks. Jared had moved into Jensen’s house two months after their first meeting, and after spending almost a year living with him, Jensen still wakes up and reaches for Jared before remembering that he’s on the other side of the planet.

Sitting in front of the flickering TV in the semi-darkness, too bone-tired to get up from his couch or return Jared’s call—he doesn’t even know what time it is in Sri Lanka—Jensen’s about to reach for the remote and switch the TV off when the flaming red ‘breaking news’ sign appears at the bottom of the screen. Everything is breaking news these days and he isn’t about to sit through the news report unless they’re saying that the world’s about to end or something. Then he sees the words ‘Sri Lanka’ on the screen and his world really does end, sort of.

 

\--

 

Three hours later he’s at the Sri Lankan embassy, waiting for his emergency visa. Eleven hours later he’s on a plane, not even thinking about the length of the journey ahead, because six cups of coffee in as many hours and desperate anxiety about Jared are keeping him preoccupied.

The news report hadn’t said much: just that a team of forensic investigators had disappeared at a historical site in Sri Lanka. The incident had only made the news in the United States because ‘an American’ had been part of the team. They hadn’t even mentioned Jared’s name, but Jensen had known, with pure and terrifying certainty, that the missing American was Jared. It was unlikely that there was more than one American forensic scientist sent by the Human Rights Commission to Colombo.

A quick call to the American embassy in Colombo had confirmed it: Jared’s team had been taken somewhere on the road between Colombo and Kandy. The person on the phone had explained that militant groups were always in need of professional help for their wounded, and that kidnapping medical teams was a regular occurrence. Often, the doctors were kept for months at a time. About twenty percent of the abducted doctors were found dead, around a third were released, and the rest simply disappeared. There was no point in Jensen visiting the area, the man had explained, trying to be sympathetic. There was nothing that Jensen, who knew neither the country nor the language, could accomplish that the authorities couldn’t.

Jensen had thanked him for the information, and told him that he would be at his office at ten a.m. the next day.

 

\--

 

He lands at Colombo at four in the morning after a sixteen-hour flight, and gets a pre-paid cab from the terminal to take him to the hotel Jared had checked into. The cab driver seems barely more awake than Jensen himself. Jensen hasn’t smoked in four years, but when the guy offers him a pack of a brand named Gold Leaf, he doesn’t refuse. The man speaks enough English for Jensen to quiz him about the best route to Kandy, and he scribbles the man’s suggestions in his notepad, asking him to spell the names of places he doesn’t know. He’s not the type to open up to strangers, but as they speed down the deserted streets of the capital, Jensen half-wishes he knew how to tell his temporary companion that he’s so terrified he can hardly breathe.

 

\--

 

At the hotel, he requests to see the room Jared had been in, and is escorted to a large, comfortable room with a single queen-sized bed. Jared’s duffel is in a corner; he’d obviously taken his backpack with him. There are a couple of books on the writing desk, an open notepad with Jared’s familiar scrawl on it, his ball point pen still open. Jensen presses the top, and the nib withdraws with a quiet click. He wants to fucking cry.

He does cry, later, when the bell boy has withdrawn with a sizable tip. The management had been slightly hesitant about giving Jensen the room, unsure of the protocol about giving a new guest a room from which the previous guest hadn’t actually checked out, but everyone’s seen the news and spoken to the police multiple times, and no one’s actually expecting the American scientist to come back.

Jensen lies awake in bed for a long time, thinking of Jared sleeping in that bed, sitting in that room and trying to call Jensen and not being able to get through. God, he’d been such an asshole. And now Jared was gone and the last thing he’d remember about Jensen was that he hadn’t wanted to talk to Jared.

 

\--

 

They’d started fighting over small things. It hadn’t been like it was in the movies, with someone cheating or someone’s career coming between them. Jensen had a heavy schedule, it was true. Before Jared, he’d often slept over at the hospital, having no reason to go home after his shift was done. Afterwards, he still worked twelve to fourteen hours a day, but once Jared moved in, they had dinner together almost every night. They bickered over small things, such as who had left the wet towel on the bed or whose turn it was to take out the trash, but for over a year, they didn’t actually fight.

When it was over—when Jared decided to take up the Human Rights Commission project in Sri Lanka and moved out as quietly and quickly as he’d moved in, declaring that some time apart would do them both good—Jensen couldn’t remember how the fights had started. It had been a whole lot of small things, really. Maybe they’d just fallen out of love. That’s what he’d told himself when he’d started working longer and longer hours, unwilling to go home. The place still smelled like Jared’s dogs. It broke his fucking heart to put his key in the lock and hear the silence that wasn’t the sound of their paws scrabbling on the door from the inside, waiting to lick him into a slobbering mess.

That couldn’t have been it, Jensen thinks now, staring up at the ceiling of the hotel room, listening to the rustling of trees outside, letting the shadows on the ceiling startle him with their sudden movements. He couldn’t have fallen out of love with Jared, because here he is now, exhausted and running on caffeine and anxiety and adrenaline, his head on a pillow that smells like Jared’s shampoo, halfway around the world from home and scared to death that he’ll never see Jared alive again.

 

 

‘Hey,’ Jensen says to the young waiter. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Aravinda, sir.’

‘Aravinda,’ Jensen says carefully, trying to pronounce the name right. ‘Did I say it right?’

The boy gives him a sudden grin. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Awesome. Listen, Aravinda. You met the guy who stayed here before me?’

‘Yes, sir. Mr Jared.’

‘Did he talk to you in the mornings? Like this?’

‘Yes, sir. Sometimes.’

‘Can you remember anything he said, anything he asked you? Anything at all? A phone number? Directions to somewhere?’

‘No, sir. He never asked anything like that. But...’

‘But what?’

‘He talked a lot about other things. He asked me if I liked cricket, sir. And how many brothers and sisters I have, and my mother’s name. He was... nice.’

‘He is.’ Jensen clears his throat.

‘Oh, and... one night’—Aravinda lowers his voice, although no one else is around to hear him—‘he came back with a lady friend, sir.’ The boy doesn’t smile, doesn’t act as if what he’s saying is a joke between them, and Jensen is grateful.

Jensen looks away for a moment, trying to remain objective. ‘Do you know who she was?’

‘Yes, sir. The lady whose picture was in the papers with Mr Jared’s.’

 

\--

 

The news that Jared had apparently hooked up with Rekha Sharma, the archaeologist who had also gone missing on the expedition, doesn’t really change anything, but it’s a blow nevertheless. Jensen tries to put himself in Jared’s shoes. If he’d been on a tough job in a dangerous place, not knowing for sure where he stood with Jared... If he’d feared he was on the verge of death, maybe he’d have taken comfort wherever he could find it, too. No, he can’t blame Jared, he isn’t going to. If it means finding Jared alive and whole, he’ll give them both his blessing and watch them walk away into the sunset.

_Just let him be okay. Please, just let him be okay and I’ll do anything._

He doesn’t even know whom he’s praying to, or if he’s even praying. He’s always thought of himself as an agnostic, not really because he’d thought actively about it, but because he supposed that’s what all scientists did.

Jared had asked him about it one night. It was before he’d moved in, a few weeks after they’d met. They’d just started spending weekends together, and Jensen had started loving going off to work early on Monday mornings with Jared still asleep in his bed. It had felt right.

When Jensen had mentioned that he thought all scientists were agnostics, Jared had asked him to explain. They’d been sitting out on Jared’s terrace, the dogs sprawled next to them. It was a clear night, and Jensen could see the lightness of Jared’s eyes in the moonlight. ‘It’s like that story,’ he said, taking another swig of beer. ‘One night, a cop comes across a drunk man crawling around under a street light, looking for something. He asks the man what he’s doing. ‘I dropped my keys over there,’ the man says, pointing across the street. ‘Then why are you looking here?’ the cop asks. ‘Because the light is so much better over here,’ the man says.’

Jared laughed. ‘So what’s the moral of the story?’

‘Science is like that, right? We don’t yet have the tools to know what we’re looking for, so we just use the ones we have to come to our conclusions. I’m not saying there’s no god, but until we have the tools to find the evidence we need, I’m happy to remain an agnostic.’

Jared watched him for a moment, silent, his brow furrowed in that habit he had when he was thinking. ‘Not everything is scientific,’ he said finally.

‘Really? You’re a scientist, and that’s what you believe?’ He cupped the nape of Jared’s neck with his hand, scratching up into his hair. Jared arched into the touch.

‘I think there are some things I’d rather use my instinct about,’ he said, and leaned up for a kiss.

Now, Jensen wants to bargain with whichever god will listen, trade anything for Jared’s safety, trade his life for Jared’s if he can. He realizes with a start that he doesn’t even know where Harley and Sadie are.

 

\--

 

He wakes up with his face wet. Trying to push the dream away as quickly as possible, he showers with the hot water turned off. He pulls on one of Jared’s hoodies over his t-shirt and stuffs Jared’s notebook into his bag. His cab’s already downstairs, waiting to take him to the embassy and then follow the route to Kandy that Jared had taken.

He’s just pulled the door shut behind him when his phone rings.

‘Dr Ackles? This is Caroline Chikezie from the Human Rights Commission.’ The voice on the line is crisp, British. ‘We’ve just received word that a member of the forensics team has been found. He’s at Memorial Street Hospital. I’m on my way there now.’

‘I’ll meet you there.’ Jensen scribbles down the address. Too wired to wait for the elevator, he takes the stairs three at a time, thrumming with nervous energy.

 

\--

 

Caroline Chikezie turns out to be a striking woman in her late twenties. She’s wearing a plum-colored business suit, looking far too awake for that hour of the morning.

‘Dr Ackles?’ She holds out a hand as soon as she sees him in the corridor, and Jensen shakes it.

‘Jensen,’ he says. ‘How’s the victim doing?’

‘He was...’ She pauses for a moment, and it’s clear that she’s schooling her features into remaining expressionless. ‘He was found with his hands nailed to the ground just off the highway.’

‘Jesus.’ Jensen scrubs a hand over his face. ‘Any other injuries?’

‘I don’t think so. He’s conscious. The police are about to question him now, and before you ask, yes, we can talk to him when they’re done.’ She hands him a visitor’s pass. ‘If anyone asks, you’re with us. You must have friends in high places.’

Jensen shrugs, silently thanking Sam Ferris, the hospital’s director, for coming through. ‘I just want to get my friend back.’

‘We’ll do our best,’ she says with a small smile, and he follows her into the ICU.

 

\--

 

The man on the bed is young, maybe a little younger than Jared, his eyes open but glassy. His hands are thickly bandaged, and Jensen looks away from them, trying not to think about how it might have felt to be crucified to a road.

‘Assaf,’ Caroline says, taking the chair by the bed. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘Yes.’ The man’s voice is hoarse, but audible.

‘I’m Caroline, and this is Jensen. He’s a friend of Jared’s. Can you tell us what happened?’

The man coughs, and waves aside Caroline’s offer of water. ‘Already told the police.’

Jensen takes a step forward. ‘We really need your help, Assaf.’

Assaf looks up at him. ‘Jensen,’ he says, as if only just remembering. ‘Jared mentioned your name.’

‘He did?’

‘Yes. When we were examining a skeleton—a skull—with a head injury. He said you’d know what had caused it.’

‘I’m a doctor.’

‘Don’t say that aloud, or you might get taken.’ Assaf gives him a ghost of a smile.

‘I need to know what happened.’ Something of his desperation must have bled into his tone, because Caroline shoots him a warning glance.

Assaf lets out a sigh. ‘It was around seven in the morning. We were at the Grove of Ascetics. We were just planning to head out to Kandy when the camp was attacked. They took three of us. Rekha, Jared and me. They thought we were doctors, so they spared our lives.’

He coughs again, and accepts a sip of water from the glass Caroline’s holding. ‘They tied our hands, put bags over our heads. Threatened to shoot us if we put up a fight. There were at least a dozen of them. Nothing we could do.’

He stops to take a breath, and then continues. ‘They separated us, took me to some sort of a militant camp. I didn’t see the others. There were tents full of wounded men, some women. Some of the wounds were terrible. Shrapnel from military bombs, mostly. Lots of bullet wounds. There was a kind of common room with a TV. When they heard on the news that the American government had gotten involved, they decided to make an example out of me as a warning that no one was to come after them. They took me out in the middle of the night. My guess is that wherever they are, Rekha and Jared haven’t said anything about not being doctors. It’s the only thing that’ll keep them alive.’

 

\--

 

‘I’m going to the woods. This grove that Assaf talked about,’ Jensen says. He takes a sip of the oily hospital coffee, wraps his fingers around the cup for warmth.

Caroline nods. ‘I figured as much. I can come with you up to there, but we have no jurisdiction, Jensen. This war has been on for decades, and the locals in the area fear the militants more than the authorities. Hundreds of people go missing every week. People are scared for their families. After what they did to Assaf, no one will want to help.’

‘I know,’ Jensen says wearily, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘But I have to try.’

‘Can I give you a word of advice? There’s a doctor here at the hospital, an Anjali Jay, whom Rekha Sharma and your friend consulted with on the case they were working on. You might want to talk to her before you go tearing off into the wilderness.’

 

\--

 

‘The last I knew,’ Anjali Jay says, pulling on her lab coat and gesturing them toward the elevator, ‘Rekha and Jared were working on a report about the skeletons that were found. It was all very hush-hush. I figured...’ She waits until the doors slide shut before she continues. ‘It must’ve been something that implicated the government in the murders.’

‘Murders?’ Caroline asks sharply. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Pretty much, yeah. Jared was going to file the report in his name. Rekha was born in India, but she’s a Sri Lankan citizen now and could have gotten into real trouble if she had anything official to do with the report. As far as I know, they didn’t have enough evidence to finish the report.’

‘What did they consult with you about?’ Jensen asks.

‘I’ll show you,’ Anjali says as the elevator doors open to reveal a brightly-lit corridor. ‘This is where the morgue is. We hid the findings in one of the rooms here, so no one would stumble across them by accident.’

She leads them into an office, and rummages through a drawer before pulling out some X-rays. ‘Here,’ Anjali says, turning on the projector and displaying one of the X-rays. ‘This is a shot of one of the skeletons they were investigating. See that injury on the skull?’

‘Looks like a bullet wound,’ Jensen says, leaning in for a closer look.

Anjali nods. ‘Exactly. Plus there were traces of metal that matched the consistency of military-issue bullets.’

‘This wasn’t evidence enough?’

‘Apparently not. There was nothing to prove that this man hadn’t been shot by a militant using a stolen gun.’

‘What were they hoping to find in Kandy?’

‘As far as I know, they were trying to identify the victims.’

‘Find the victim, and you find the killer,’ Caroline muses aloud, staring at the shattered skull on the screen.

‘Something like that, yeah. They were a little secretive, trying to protect the work, protect others like me from getting too involved. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.’ She looks at Jensen. ‘I hope you find your friend.’

 

\--

 

Kandy is a four-hour drive away, and the Grove of Ascetics is in a forest just outside the city. Caroline arranges for an SUV driven by a large, silent man named Faran Tahir, who is apparently an expert on the area. She sits in front with him while Jensen gets into the back. He can’t manage any sleep beyond a few minutes’ dozing at a time.

They’d planned to take a road trip together, Jared and him, a trip that had never materialized. Jared had been planning to take a short break from work once he was done with his doctoral research. He’d spent too many nights falling asleep over his desk, and Jensen had woken him up with a hand on his shoulder and led him to bed. Most mornings, he woke as early as Jensen and took the dogs for a run. Over dinner, they tried not to talk about work, and talked about what they’d do to celebrate once Jared was done with his thesis. Jared wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and they talked about getting into Jensen’s jeep and driving for days, maybe taking the dogs along if Genevieve couldn’t babysit them. Jared had been excited to talk about it, and his enthusiasm was infectious.

They hadn’t made the trip. Jared’s thesis was done, his defense had come and gone, and he’d been offered the Human Rights project. They hadn’t exactly fought about it, but Jensen hadn’t liked the idea of Jared spending weeks, maybe months, in a place where there was an unofficial war on. Jared had spent five years in Sri Lanka as a child—his mother had been the US ambassador in Colombo—and he’d all but leaped at the chance to go back there.

‘What’s wrong with the FBI consulting job?’ Jensen asked in frustration one night.

‘I can do that anytime,’ Jared pointed out.

‘You can go to Sri Lanka anytime,’ Jensen snapped back. ‘At a better time, even, once this terrorism stuff is done with.’

Jared didn’t respond for a minute. ‘You’re scared for me,’ he said finally.

‘Of course I’m scared for you.’ Jensen reached across the table, covered Jared’s hand with his. ‘What did you think this was about—holding you back from what you wanted?’

‘No, I guess not. I just...’ Jared looked up. ‘I just really want to do this. I can’t explain it. I want to so bad.’

‘Just promise me you’ll think about the consulting job. It’s right here in the city.’

‘I get where you’re coming from.’ Jared squeezed his hand. ‘You know I do. But I can’t stay here just because it would be convenient.’

‘That’s what this is, then?’ Jensen pulled his hand away, gesturing between them. ‘Something convenient?’

Jared closed his eyes. ‘No. Fuck, Jensen, don’t put words in my mouth.’

Jared hadn’t come to bed that night. Jensen awoke to find him asleep on the couch, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

 

 

Halfway through the journey, they stop at a roadside stall for tea. Tahir disappears into the small restaurant, and Jensen and Caroline sit at a bench outside with long, transparent glasses of steaming tea.

‘You look like shit,’ Caroline says, watching Jensen as he lights a cigarette, shaking her head when he offers her one. ‘I quit.’

‘I’d quit too. Until a couple of days ago.’ He glances up at her. ‘You been here long?’

‘A couple of years. I’m a sci-fi buff,’ she says with a little laugh. ‘I guess I took this assignment mostly because I wanted to see Arthur C. Clarke’s house.’

‘Did you?’

‘Nah, been too busy. But I will before I leave. Do you dive?’

Jensen shrugs. ‘A little. I’m no expert.’

‘Clarke was. He moved here because it’s one of the best diving regions in the world.’

‘Are you into it?’

‘Yeah. I wanted to be a diving instructor when I was little. Then I read _The Ghost from the Grand Banks_ and I wanted to be Jacques Cousteau instead.’

Jensen smiles. ‘Cousteau is one of Jared’s idols. You’d both have a lot to talk about.’

He half-expects her to say something reassuring. She gives him a small smile and takes another sip of her tea.

Jensen glances around, and notices that Faran Tahir has emerged from the small hut that functions as a restaurant. He’s talking to a man who is leaning against a tree, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette made out of some kind of leaf. Tahir speaks English, but for some reason he hasn’t spoken in front of Jensen, except to make functional remarks.

‘I don’t think he likes me very much.’

‘Don’t take it personally,’ Caroline says. ‘He’s a man on a mission, so to speak. His family is one of those that were decimated in the last Colombo riots. Apparently one of the militia groups decided to turn anti-Muslim, and targeted the largely Muslim community in which he lives. He lost his father and a brother. I don’t think he’s thought about anything but revenge ever since.’

 

\--

 

It’s Jared’s birthday in two days. The previous year, Jensen had spent the day in a six-hour surgery. He’d only remembered the date when he’d been stripping off his bloodstained gloves, his knees almost buckling with exhaustion.

Jared hadn’t been home when Jensen had arrived, so he’d sat at the steps in front of the apartment complex. He’d been content to wait, and Jared’s broad smile when his motorcycle had rolled to a stop in front of the building had been worth the wait.

‘Hey,’ Jared said, tugging off his helmet and leaning down for a kiss. ‘You been waiting long?’

‘Nah.’ Jensen curled his hands into Jared’s jacket, keeping him close. ‘Happy birthday, Jay.’

‘You remembered,’ Jared murmured against his mouth.

‘You going to keep talking, or do you want to go upstairs and open your present?’

‘Depends on what the present is,’ Jared whispered back, pressing even closer, and Jensen grabbed the front of his jacket and hauled him to the elevator.

They fell together on the couch, hands all over each other, frantically pushing each other’s clothes out of the way. They didn’t manage to get completely undressed. They’d only been seeing each other for two months, and being with Jared was still thrillingly new to Jensen. He hadn’t expected to be driven so frantic with desire at thirty-four; always thought he’d been there, done that. Jared had changed all that.

‘Just like that,’ Jared gasped below him, his hand flailing to half-pet, half-push at Sadie’s head. ‘Not _now_ , girl, Daddy’s busy.’

Jensen laughed helplessly, kissing the side of Jared’s head and shoving his hand between them to take Jared in hand. He was hard and wet and beautiful, and Jensen wanted him in his mouth, right then. He followed through on that thought in an instant, kissing his way down Jared’s body and sucking his cock into his mouth. Neither of them was in the mood for teasing. He stroked himself as he brought Jared off, Jared’s bitten-off cries and the occasional filth that found its way out of his mouth only turning Jensen on more.

Later, they stretched out in bed and dug into the large piece of red velvet cake—Jared’s favorite—that Jensen had bought, forks in their hands and a single plate between them. When they were done, Jared sat naked and cross-legged on the bed to open Jensen’s presents—a water-resistant watch and a biography of Margaret Leakey that Jared had mentioned a while ago.

‘You remember everything,’ Jared said, leaning in to give Jensen a quick, hard kiss.

‘There’s something else,’ Jensen said, reaching over to the nightstand to pick up a set of keys. He tossed them at Jared, who caught them one-handed.

‘Your house keys?’ Jared looked puzzled for a moment. Jensen sat back and watched him figure it out. When he did, the dimpled smile was dazzling. ‘You want to? Really?’

Jensen shrugged. ‘Yes. I want to see you more than just a couple times a week. Plus, it’s a house. Think of how much the dogs would love the yard.’

Jared walked over on his knees until he was straddling Jensen, his hair falling around his face and making him look ten years younger. ‘So you’re just doing it for the dogs, then?’ He kissed Jensen lightly, still smiling.

‘Mm hm.’ Jensen kissed him back, winding his arms around Jared to keep him in place. ‘You caught me out.’

‘Just can’t resist them, huh?’ Jared pressed little kisses against Jensen’s lips, his hands pushing beneath Jensen’s back.

‘Nope. Not even a little.’ Jensen kissed him slow and deep as they started rocking together, Jared’s cock wedged close and tight and perfect against Jensen’s. They took it slow this time, murmuring into each other’s mouths, pushing languidly against each other.

It was later, when Jensen stroked Jared’s hair away from his closed eyes before turning out the lights, that he remembered he’d have to sneak the keys away to make an extra set for himself. Giving Jared a set had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. He hadn’t regretted it, not even when Jared left him, leaving the keys on top of the dining table.

 

 

The expert that Jared had gone to meet at the Grove of Ascetics is known simply as Palipana. He’s in his seventies, wearing a checked sarong with a button-down shirt on top, its sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’s completely blind.

‘I moved here when my eyesight began to fail, and Colombo’s libraries were no longer of use to me,’ he says. A girl in a long patterned skirt sets a tray of lemonade down on the table in front of them, and he waves a hand toward the glasses. ‘Lakma looks after me, as you can see. Please, help yourselves.’

He turns on his cane couch until he’s facing Jensen. ‘So, Faran tells me you’re a doctor.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What kind?’

Jensen shifts a little. His nerves are too wound up for this sort of meandering conversation, this thick, languid air of inactivity. Caroline shoots him a glance. ‘I’m a neurosurgeon.’ He clenches a hand around a condensation-soaked glass, takes a sip of the too-sweet drink.

‘Ah. An intelligent young man, then. Just like the other young American who graced us with his presence.’

‘I’d do anything to find him. Anything you can tell us would be a great help.’

‘He has a large heart, that one.’ Palipana holds out his arms, stretching them wide. ‘This place delighted him, I think. The history in it. The stories.’

‘What did he want here? Why did he come to you?’

‘He brought me something. A ghost.’

‘A ghost?’

Palipana waves a hand at their surroundings. They’re surrounded by tall rocks, many of them bearing inscriptions from thousands of years ago. ‘This is a place where people like him are welcome. People who carry ghosts. Jared believed he was chasing a ghost, when in reality, I think he was running away from one. Or more.’

Jensen leans forward, his hands clasped together. ‘What was he chasing, sir? What ghost?’

‘A bag of bones. A victim. He wanted evidence. Justice.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I told him to go home.’

Caroline exchanges a look with Jensen. ‘You couldn’t find anything from the bones?’

Palipana smiles, a faraway look. ‘People still trust my hands, still think I can determine things by touch.’

‘Can you?’ Caroline presses.

‘I believe the people who took the scientists are nearby.’

Jensen holds his breath. ‘How can you be sure?’

‘Their feet. They were bare. I heard their soles strike the ground as they walked. They smelled of something. Copper.’

‘There are some abandoned copper mines in the area,’ Caroline says to Jensen, her eyes shining with excitement. ‘Did you tell the police this?’ she asks Palipana.

The ascetic shrugs. ‘Perhaps they did not want to listen.’ He gestures to the girl, who’s been standing quietly behind his chair. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I am tired now.’

 

\--

 

‘Did he mean what I think he meant?’ Jensen turns to Caroline as they walk back to the SUV. ‘That he practically told the authorities where the militants might have taken Jared and the others, but they did nothing about it?

‘I don’t know, Jensen.’ Caroline bites her lip, shading her eyes from the bright afternoon sun. ‘We have to tread very carefully here. We’re in the middle of a civil war.’

Jensen stares at her. ‘We’re close to Jared!’

‘We don’t know that! We only have a blind man’s word that he smelled copper on the group that attacked this place.’

‘I’m going to these mines, whether you’re coming or not.’

‘You’re going to walk into a terrorist camp on your own? Jensen, if it’s true, they’ll probably shoot you on sight.’

‘Then what? What am I supposed to do? Sit back and do nothing? I won’t abandon him, Caroline. Not when we’re so close.’

‘I’m not asking you to,’ she says gently, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Just listen, okay? I’m going to call the embassy, figure out a way to get backup. We need to go through the right channels.’

‘Palipana said the cops ignored what he told them. What makes you think they’ll listen now?’

‘He said the local cops didn’t listen. You don’t know this place, Jensen. You don’t know how much people fear for their lives, their families. Two weeks ago, just before the Human Rights team got here, there were riots in Kandy. People woke up to find their family members’ heads on stakes. The local cops are not going to help. They’re afraid, Jensen. Everyone in this country is afraid.’

Jensen sits down on a rock, bringing a shaking hand to his head. ‘Tell me the truth. What are the chances that Jared is still alive?’

‘I don’t know,’ Caroline says simply. She kneels beside him, cupping his elbow. ‘But I won’t tell you to lose hope.’

 

\--

 

‘We can only hope,’ Jensen says.

At the other end of the line, he can hear Harley and Sadie barking. ‘That’s it?’ Genevieve asks. ‘That’s all you have to say?’

‘I don’t know what else to say, Gen.’

‘He’s my best friend,’ Genevieve says. ‘He’s...’

‘I know. And he’s all I have, Gen. And every day, every fucking minute, all I can think about is getting him back. I promise you that.’

‘Call me the minute you have news?’

‘I will.’

 

\--

 

He’d meant what he said to Genevieve about Jared being all he had.

Jensen had grown up in a series of foster homes. No one had treated him badly; on the contrary, each of the families he’d stayed with had been affectionate and generous. He’d just never felt at home anywhere, and after med school, it had been an easy decision to join the army as a surgeon. He’d never liked the idea of war, but he’d fallen headfirst into serving in the field, feeling something almost like relief at the experience of treating injury after injury until he collapsed into sleep at nights, too tired to think or dream. Three years later, a shrapnel injury had forced him back into civilian life, and he’d gone back to believing he’d never find his place anywhere. He’d told Jared that one night, a few weeks after Jared and his dogs had moved in.

They were lying in bed, sticky and sated and too lazy to move just yet. Jared’s head was on Jensen’s chest, his hair tickling Jensen’s nose, his breathing deep and even. Jensen pressed a kiss to the top of his head, thinking he was asleep.

‘What’re you thinking about?’ Jared asked, his voice soft and sleepy, his lips moving against Jensen’s skin.

‘Nothing.’ Jensen scratched lightly at Jared’s scalp. ‘Go to sleep.’

Jared lifted his head. ‘Something’s bothering you.’

Jensen slid a hand down Jared’s back, palming the curve of his ass, tracing Jared’s hole lightly with his fingertip.

Jared groaned softly, turning his face into Jensen’s neck. ‘Stop trying to distract me, Ackles.’

‘Is is working?’ Jensen stroked him with a finger, circling his rim.

‘Fuck.’ Jared pushed back reflexively against Jensen’s hand, his hole clenching under Jensen’s touch.

‘You like that?’ Jensen murmured against his temple, brushing a kiss there.

‘You know I do.’ Jared’s hand tightened on the nape of Jensen’s neck. ‘Talk to me, Jen.’

Jensen talked to him. He also fingered Jared lightly throughout the conversation, smiling at the way Jared struggled to keep up with his words. To the kid’s credit, he managed to keep up his end of the conversation for a while, until they both became too distracted to talk. Later, Jensen couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said to Jared, only that he’d managed not to reveal just how closely he’d begun to associate Jared with his sense of home.

 

\--

 

The only time they got into a somewhat physical fight was about a month before Jared left for Sri Lanka.

Jensen got home after a gruelling day to find that Jared had been drinking. The smell of vodka made Jensen feel more nauseated than he already was. He pushed past Jared and went into the study, slamming the door behind him.

An hour or so later, he wandered into the kitchen in search of something to eat to find Jared at the table, peeling an apple with a paring knife.

‘I don’t think you should be handling a knife right now,’ he said, opening the fridge to dig out the previous night’s leftovers.

‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ Jared snapped back immediately. He turned into a petulant kid when he had too much to drink.

That night, Jensen couldn’t really find it in him to drag out the argument. He knew it was partially his fault that Jared was upset.

‘I’m not,’ he said, switching on the microwave. ‘Just be careful.’

‘I’m not a child, Jensen. Stop treating me like one.’

‘I’m not...’ Jensen began, and then shrugged helplessly. ‘Fine. Whatever.’

Jared stayed quiet, but he stabbed the knife viciously into the apple. ‘Fine. Whatever,’ he echoed.

‘Jared.’ Jensen caught his wrist. ‘You’re drunk. Let go of the knife.’

Jared’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. ‘You think I’d hurt you?’

‘No. I’m afraid you’ll hurt yourself. Just let go of the knife, please.’

Jared’s hand twisted in Jensen’s grip, struggling to get free. ‘Let go of me, Jensen.’

‘No. Not until you drop the knife.’

Jared pushed hard against Jensen’s chest with his free hand, getting to his feet at the same time. Caught off guard, Jensen stumbled back against the fridge. A glass that had been lying on top of it crashed to the floor, sending shards everywhere.

Jared was still holding the knife. Jensen caught his wrist again, keeping his grip tight until Jared’s fingers loosened and Jensen could wrest the knife away from him.

Jared left the kitchen without a word, and it was only when he saw the drops of blood on the floor that Jensen realized that Jared must have cut himself on the broken glass. He’d been barefoot.

He followed Jared to the bathroom and heard the water running on the other side of the door. ‘Jared?’ The door was locked. ‘Jared, come on. Let me in.’

Jared didn’t let him in, didn’t say a word. Jensen sank to the floor, his back against the bathroom door. He hadn’t thought for a second that Jared would use the knife against either of them, but the sight of it in Jared’s hand had unnerved him.

Jared hadn’t emerged for a long time. In the morning, Jensen had found him asleep on the couch, a band-aid on his foot, and he’d felt his heart break a little.

 

 

‘What’re they doing down there?’ Caroline says, sounding as frustrated as Jensen feels.

They’re in a car with bulletproof glass, parked outside the copper mines and surrounded by soldiers. It’s been more than thirty minutes since a dozen commandos went down the rickety elevator into the mine shaft, and there’s been nothing but silence since.

It’s another half hour before the all-clear sounds. Jensen already knows they won’t find any militants down there; the lack of gunshots had told them already that if anyone had been down there, they weren’t any more.

It’s another forty-five minutes before he and Caroline are allowed down into the mines.

‘We found a survivor,’ Captain de Silva says simply, as soon as the elevator comes to a stop at the bottom of the shaft. ‘It’s the woman.’

There’s a team of paramedics there already, strapping an unconscious woman onto a stretcher. There’s an oxygen mask over her face, and her clothes are filthy and bloodstained.

‘Rekha Sharma,’ Caroline says, her voice barely a whisper. ‘What happened to her?’

‘Running a high fever,’ the Captain says. ‘We think they left her for dead.’ He holds out something to Jensen. ‘Is this your friend’s?’

It’s Jared’s blue plaid shirt, the one he used to wear all the time when he was stressed and working late. It was old and broken in, he’d said. A couple of times, Jensen had wrestled it off him to get it into the washing machine. A couple of buttons are missing, one of the sleeves torn. The front of it is covered in blood.

 

\--

 

‘It may not be his blood.’

It’s the third time Caroline’s said the words, and Jensen is starting to agree. Looking at the shirt in the bright sunlight outside the mines, he’s beginning to think that some of the blood is older than the rest. Surely, if Jared has been pretending to be a doctor, he must have been asked to tend to people whose blood might have gotten on him.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Yeah, it might not be.’ He swallows hard, as he’s been doing every few minutes to keep the bile from his mouth.

Among the belongings left behind, they’ve also found several empty cartons of medicines, and a few scraps of paper with Jared’s handwriting on them. There are no clues there, just lists of medical supplies that Jared must have asked for. Gauze, bandages, forceps, painkillers. Jensen goes through each list carefully anyway, realizing that most of the medicines Jared had listed were basic ones, ones that any general physician would have thought to prescribe. He wasn’t—isn’t—a doctor, but he’d known enough to get away with his ruse.

‘Dr Sharma,’ Jensen says, looking up at Caroline. His vision is starting to feel blurred. ‘Why d’you think they left her behind?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe they thought she was already dead, as the Captain said.’

‘Or maybe they found out she wasn’t really a medical doctor, and abandoned her to die.’ Jensen swallows again.

Caroline presses a bottle of water into his hands. ‘He was here, Jensen. As far as we know, he’s still alive. Take heart from that.’

Jensen nods. A soldier comes to take Jared’s shirt away in an evidence bag. Jensen hands it over. He keeps the scraps of paper, pressing them between the pages of Jared’s notebook.

 

\--

 

‘There’s something here.’ Jensen’s head is in his hands, his fingers clutching at his hair. ‘There’s something here and I’m not seeing it.’

Jared’s scraps of paper are spread out on a table in front of him. They’re at a boarding house in Kandy, and Jensen has been staring at the bits of paper for hours.

‘Jensen,’ Caroline says, leaning forward in her chair. ‘Maybe you’re just looking too hard.’

‘He’d have done something, damn it. He’d have tried to leave a clue, get a message through to us somehow. He wouldn’t just give up.’

‘Maybe he didn’t know what to say,’ Caroline says helplessly. ‘Maybe they didn’t tell him anything.’

Jensen shakes his head. ‘I won’t believe that. He lived here as a kid. He knows something of the Sinhala language. He would have figured something out. He would have...’ He crumples the paper in his hand, his voice shaking.

‘Jensen, stop. Just, please. You’re upset and exhausted. Just get some rest first.’

Jensen buries his face in his arms, closing his eyes. Grief wants to spill out of him, pushing at his insides, swelling up inside him like a balloon that’s about to burst. ‘There’s something here,’ he says, his voice muffled. ‘There has to be.’

 

 

‘I can wear it for another night,’ Jared protested, trying to pull away from Jensen as he caught hold of Jared’s collar.

‘No,’ Jensen said firmly. ‘You smell like dog and sweat.’

‘I’m busy!’ Jared yelled, ducking under Jensen’s arm. He tripped over his feet and fell on the bed, laughing.

‘That’s why I’m not making you do your own laundry,’ Jensen pointed out, standing over him. ‘Take your clothes off right now, or I’ll drag you into the bathroom by your hair and hose you down.’

‘Sounds kinky,’ Jared said, grinning up at him, but he shrugged out of the shirt and obligingly pulled his t-shirt over his head, too. ‘There. Happy now?’

‘Keep going.’ Jensen gestured toward his sweat pants.

Jared kicked the pants off, flinging them at Jensen. ‘You sure you wanna do laundry?’ he asked, leaning back on his elbows.

They jerked each other off against the washing machine, the clothes spinning and whirring below them.

 

\--

 

Jensen wakes up several times during the night, twice to nightmares about finding Jared’s lifeless body, and a few times to dreams he can’t remember that leave him shaking and drenched in sweat.

At dawn, he gives up trying to sleep and goes downstairs to the small dining room at the lodge. Caroline is already there, sipping from a cup of tea. Seeing Jensen, she pours him a cup from the teapot.

‘Couldn’t sleep?’

He shrugs, dropping into the chair opposite hers. ‘Any word from the hospital?’

‘She’s stable, but they’ve induced a coma. Her vitals aren’t great.’ Caroline glances at the ever-present notebook in Jensen’s hands. Jared’s scraps of paper are poking out of its sides like makeshift bookmarks. ‘You still looking at those?’

‘Humor me, okay?’

‘Yeah, okay,’ she says, her eyes sympathetic. Jensen thinks he might scream if she thinks of saying anything kind, but she doesn't.

He lays out the lists of medicines on the table again. He’s memorized them all by now, but there’s still that nagging feeling at the back of his mind. All the names on the list are familiar; there’s no hidden code, no secret meanings to be found, just the names of medicines, but he still can’t shake the feeling that he’s missing something. Maybe Caroline’s right, and he’s trying too hard.

‘Wait a minute,’ he says, glancing from one of the lists to the other.

‘What?’ Caroline looks up, hopeful. ‘Did you find something?’

‘I think so. I don’t know yet.’ Trying to stop his heart from pounding painfully, Jensen pulls a couple more lists toward him. ‘Look at this. Every list has Mercurochrome on it.’

Caroline looks up at him, puzzled. ‘Yeah. So?’

‘So it’s a pretty dated drug,’ Jensen says, getting more and more excited. ‘It’s not even legally available in the US. There are alternatives that are much more easily available, and cheaper.’

Caroline lets out a soft breath. ‘Maybe not in this country, Jensen. You ever watch _The Constant Gardener_? There’s a reason human rights groups are at arms with pharmaceutical companies.’

Jensen winces. ‘Yeah. I know Jared was concerned about stuff like that. He once dragged me to a seminar about how dangerous drugs were being marketed in developing countries.’

‘And you think that’s why he asked for Mercurochrome?’

‘Maybe, just maybe, he was trying to give us a clue. Mercurochrome can’t be as easily available as other substitutes, and I’m willing to bet he told his kidnappers that a substitute wouldn’t work as well.’

‘But even if that were true, it’s no use now, is it? Even if we can trace the pharmacist from which they got their drugs, they’re long gone now.’

‘Yeah, but what if they’re still in the area? What if there aren’t too many places that stock Mercurochrome?’

As it turns out, there are only two pharmacies in all of Kandy that stock Mercurochrome.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Jared’s plane lands at Colombo International Airport at a quarter past two on a humid Tuesday afternoon. From the sky, Sri Lanka doesn't appear to be a country at war: it looks like a tropical island out of a glossy travel brochure, surrounded by blue waters and glittering, yellow-white beaches that invite daydreaming and fantasies of romance. Tourism hadn’t exactly been a large-scale industry when Jared had lived in Colombo as a child, and he can’t stop his memories from superimposing themselves on what he sees now: ceiling fans slowly stirring the humid air in their two-bedroom home; paper boats set to sail in puddles of rain water with his friends from school; freshly-fried murukkus crunching in his mouth as he chattered with their cook in Sinhalese, the musical language spilling from his lips as easily as his mother tongue.

Throughout his sixteen-hour flight, Jared’s been looking at the extensive information that had been faxed to him at his office on the university campus. There are a few black-and-white photographs of murdered people assumed to be the victims of political violence, most of them anonymous and disinterred from unmarked graves. Most of the information is in the form of forensic reports that local doctors had been able to create before the bodies were confiscated as state’s evidence. As an outsider entering a volatile situation, he’s been asked to be discreet, to essentially go undercover. His official role will be that of a forensic pathologist assisting a team of archaeologists investigating a series of ruins just outside the capital city of Colombo.

As he emerges from Customs, he catches sight of a man in plain clothes—nondescript gray trousers and a checked, half-sleeved cotton shirt—holding up a card that says simply: _Dr Jared P._ The second thing he notices as he steps out of the air-conditioned terminal is the thick, heavy afternoon air, which instantly engulfs him.

He lifts a hand to draw the man’s attention, and helps him load his bags into the back. He doesn’t have much luggage, just his backpack and a duffel.

The car is blissfully cool, and Jared leans back against the soft seat and switches on his phone. There are no new messages. He opens a new text message and types. 

_Reached Colombo. Please call when you can._

He reads the seven words over and over, and then makes a change.

_Reached Colombo. Please call if you can._

Making a frustrated sound, he slides his thumb to the Cancel button instead.

 

\--

 

‘Rekha Sharma,’ the woman waiting for him in the hotel lobby says, standing up and holding out her hand. ‘I hope you had a good flight.’

‘It was pretty long, but yeah, I’m good.’

‘Great,’ she says with a warm smile. ‘I’m sure you’ll want to rest and catch up on your sleep. I just thought I’d say hello and drop this off.’ She hands him a folder. ‘Some new evidence.’

‘Actually, I’d rather stay up until tonight. I want to get my body clock adjusted ASAP, you know?’

‘Sure,’ she says. ‘You want to freshen up, and then pay a quick visit to the hospital?’

Jared nods. ‘I won’t be long.’

He dumps his bags in his room, takes a quick shower, and is back in the lobby in less than fifteen minutes.

‘I’m impressed,’ Rekha says with a laugh.

‘I’m not a girl,’ Jared grins, pushing a hand back through his hair. ‘Despite appearances.’

She grins back. They’re off to a good start, Jared thinks as they make their way to her car.

 

\--

 

In the hospital morgue, Rekha locks the door behind them and pulls a plastic sheet off a long metal table, revealing four skeletons.

‘These just came in today,’ she says. ‘Retrieved from an old ruin just outside the city.’

Jared spends a few minutes examining the remains. ‘None of these is over five years old,’ he says finally, looking up.

‘Exactly. Far too recent to have been found so deep in the hills.’

Jared glances up at her. ‘You think they were put there by someone?’

Rekha nods. ‘The official report released to the press says that the bodies found in the ruins are at least fifty years old, victims of riots during the sixties.’

‘So these are murder victims?’ Jared turns one of the skulls gently, indicating an obvious head wound. ‘I’m pretty sure this is a gunshot wound.’

‘There’s more. The area that these were found in is a historical site, protected by government security.’

‘Are you saying—’

‘I’m saying these are political murders, Dr Padalecki.’

‘Jared.’

‘These bodies were put there by someone within the ruling government, Jared. Hidden there by someone who didn’t want them to be found.’

Jared meets her eyes. ‘Which also means there might be trace evidence.’

She nods. ‘Something that can lead us back to whoever did this.’ She glances at her watch. ‘It’s too late to do more today, but I had a friend collect some samples. She’ll give us a report first thing tomorrow.’

‘You’re sure she can be trusted?’

‘Normally I’d say yes, but this is turning out to be such a high-profile investigation that I’m just not sure whom to trust. I told her some remains had been found, but I didn’t tell her where.’

Jared nods, suddenly feeling out of his element. ‘We could be in real trouble if someone finds out what we’re doing, couldn’t we?’

‘Yes. Keep this to yourself, and don’t mention anything to anyone, not even over an email or phone call.’

 

\--

 

They spend another hour examining the bodies. Jared finds several more injuries on each of the bodies, mainly broken bones. He’ll need to run more tests to be sure, but he’s almost certain some of the fractures were caused post mortem. 

Rekha drops him off at the hotel, and they agree to meet back at the hospital the next morning to check on the test results, and to transfer the bodies to a safer location. 

Jared’s bone-tired; in his time zone, he’d have been in bed nine hours ago. He strips and lies down, calling room service and ordering a sandwich. He forces himself to get up and pull on a robe while he waits for the food, getting a can of beer from the mini-fridge and putting on the TV to keep himself awake. It’s not even nine yet.

He falls asleep before it’s ten, managing only half a sandwich. When his alarm rings at six, he puts it off and goes back to sleep for an hour. He wakes up to no new messages on his phone.

 _Fuck, Jensen._ He’d half-hoped Jensen would at least leave him a message before going to bed, but maybe he’s been busy. Maybe he’s sleeping at the hospital again. Jared hopes that isn’t the case, but he knows Jensen too well by now. He’ll work himself to death rather than give himself time to sit and think about the mess that he and Jared have let their relationship become.

Jared thinks back with a wince to the last conversation they’d had. Jensen had looked so angry, so hurt, so beautiful. He hadn’t raised his voice; he hardly ever did. He’d just sounded disappointed and betrayed that Jared didn’t want to stay and fix things.

‘I’m just going away for a while,’ Jared said. He’d already left the dogs at Gen and Danneel’s. Jensen hadn’t asked where they were, didn’t even seem to notice they were gone.

‘This is the worst time you could choose to go away,’ Jensen said.

‘I’m not choosing anything, Jensen. This is work. I told you a hundred times that I’m going to Sri Lanka.’

Jensen just nodded. ‘Yeah. You should go.’

‘I don’t leave for a couple of days. Maybe we could…’

‘Maybe we could what?’ Jensen asked quietly. ‘You didn’t even let me say goodbye to Harley and Sadie, Jared. Did you think I’d refuse to look after them while you were away?’

‘It’s not like that,’ Jared protested. ‘I know the hours you work. I couldn’t impose on—’

‘Save it, Jared. Just say that you aren’t sure you’re going to be coming back.’

‘Of course I’m coming—’

‘Here,’ Jensen finished. ‘You aren’t sure you’re going to be coming back to this house. Are you?’

Jared sat down on the couch, pushing his hands back through his hair. ‘I don’t know what to be sure of anymore.’

‘Yeah. Me either.’ Jensen looked so desolate that Jared wanted to burrow into his arms, tell him that everything was going to be fine.

He got up and put a hand on Jensen’s shoulder. ‘I’ll be back in a few weeks, okay? You take care of yourself.’

‘You too, Jared.’

When he took his bags out the door, neither of them remarked on the fact that he’d packed everything he owned.

 

\--

 

Pushing aside that memory, Jared thinks back instead to the last time they’d been in bed together.

It had been over three weeks ago. Things were a little strained between them, but not so much that Jared didn’t want to touch Jensen, wrap himself around him when they slept. For once, he’d come home later than Jensen. Jensen had had a rare evening off work, and Jared had got home from the university to find that Jensen had cooked his favorite meal, pasta with mushrooms and white sauce. They’d foregone their usual preference for beer and opened a bottle of wine, watched _Back to the Future_ and said all the dialogues out loud along with the actors, finishing the wine in record time.

Later, he’d gotten on all fours on the bed, and Jensen had spread his cheeks and licked him until Jared was reduced to writhing and begging to be allowed to come. They’d fallen asleep together in an exhausted mess. 

The next morning, Jared confessed that he had signed the contract for the Human Rights Commission project, and Jensen had left for work without saying goodbye.

Jared finds an autoricksha—a small, three-wheeled cab open on both sides—to take him to the hospital, preferring to see the city that way rather than being shut up in an air-conditioned car. The cab careens its way through short cuts to avoid the morning traffic, zigzagging through narrow alleys and making Jared feel like he’s on a rollercoaster. It’s exhilarating.

He arrives at the hospital with his hair in a mess and his cheeks flushed, feeling more light-hearted than he has in a while. Rekha takes one look at him and lets out a laugh. ‘You look like you’re having a good morning,’ she observes.

‘The best,’ Jared agrees. 

They spend some time with Rekha’s friend, Anjali Jay, who shows them the findings from the samples she’d gathered.

‘Definitely a military-issue gun,’ she says, pressing a fingertip against the forensics report on the bullet fragment she’d found embedded in the skull. She glances curiously between them. ‘Where did you get the skull? I’d love to examine the rest of the skeleton if possible.’

‘Only the head was found, I’m afraid,’ Rekha says, feigning regret. ‘I’ll keep you posted if there’s more news. Thanks a bunch, Anjali. I owe you one.’

‘Anytime,’ Anjali says brightly, but Jared can see she’s covering her disappointment.

‘Before you say anything, I had to,’ Rekha mutters when they’re alone in the morgue again.

‘I get it,’ Jared says quickly. He glances around at the skeletons. ‘So what shall we do with these guys?’

‘They need names. How about Tinker, Sailor, Soldier and Spy?’

Jared smiles. ‘Works for me.’

‘I’ll go get the paperwork to move them sorted, if you want to get started on them.’

‘Sounds good.’

Jared spends the rest of the morning examining the skeletons more closely. A quick test determines that Tinker and Soldier are at least five years old, while Spy is more recent, no more than two years old. As far as Jared can tell, Sailor is the most recently deceased: the skeleton is no more than six months old, and the victim was no more than twenty years old at the time of death.

‘This is strange,’ he tells Rekha when she gets back.

‘What?’

‘See these symmetrical markings at the joints of the arms? They show that Sailor’s arms got a lot of exercise. Probably something that needed her to raise her arms above shoulder level a lot.’

‘Why are the markings on her arms strange? Maybe she was… I don’t know, an artist or something?’

‘I’m not so sure, because both arms have the same wear and tear. And that’s not the strange part.’ He leads Rekha around to the opposite side of the table. ‘See the smoothness of her heels and the pads of her toes? I’d say her profession was largely sedentary.’

Rekha frowns. ‘So she worked with her arms a lot, but didn’t move her feet much? That doesn’t make sense.’ She looks up. ‘Could she have been in a wheelchair?’

‘That’s possible, but her hip bones don’t show the same lack of movement. Looks like she turned around a lot.’

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ Rekha murmurs. 

‘She’s definitely a forensic mystery waiting to be solved.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell?’

‘Yeah. She was burned, maybe post mortem, but there’s some evidence to show that she may have been alive at the time. I won’t know for sure until I’ve run more tests.’

‘Oh my fucking god.’ Rekha clamps a hand over her mouth.

‘I know.’ Jared winces. ‘They probably thought she was already dead, if that’s any consolation.’

‘And they burned her to destroy her identity, I suppose.’

‘That would be my guess, yeah.’ Jared gestures to one of Sailor’s arms. ‘She has a fractured humerus, which definitely happened after she was dead for at least a month.’

‘She was transferred?’

Jared nods. ‘I ran some tests on a bone fragment I took from Sailor’s ankle. When a body is buried in soil, the bones absorb the chemicals from the surrounding earth. There’s evidence that she was buried in alluvial soil first, and later moved to the ruins.’

‘Alluvial—isn’t that soil that’s found near the surface of the ground?’

‘Yes. Probably a shallow grave, hastily made to conceal the victim temporarily before a more secure hiding place could be found.’

‘And in a fertile region,’ Rekha muses. ‘Maybe a field of some sort?’

‘Most probably. Definitely somewhere outside city limits. There are barely any traces of pollutant.’ He smiles, remembering a line he’d heard in a lecture. It hadn’t been remarkable in itself, but he hasn’t forgotten it because he’d spoken to Jensen for the first time that day.

‘Something funny?’

‘No, I was just thinking of something. I went to a course at a teaching hospital about a year ago. The lecturer said something about how you need ‘a high index of suspicion’ to categorize certain injuries. With victims this old, we can only make educated guesses.’

Rekha pats him on the arm. ‘You’ve done a great job so far, Jared. Now, would you like to hear the good news first, or the bad?’

‘There’s bad news?’

‘’Fraid so. They won’t let us ship the bodies out to the labs at the research institute. The hospital director says he has orders to wrap the bodies to go. Someone from the government general hospital will be here this afternoon to pick them up.’

‘They can’t do that!’

‘They can, and they will. The good news is, they’re probably going to send some lackey who isn’t going to care much about a few skeletons. I suggest we remove one of the heads—possibly Sailor’s, since she’s the most recent and we have the best chance of identifying her—and pack the rest. Enough people are beheaded that it won’t seem strange that one of the bodies is missing a head.’

Jared stares at her, appalled. ‘Rekha, this is a person we’re talking about. We can’t just remove her head and—’

‘I know,’ Rekha says firmly. ‘I know, okay? If we don’t do this, she may never have a chance to be put to rest. At least this way we’ll have something to work with.’

 

\--

 

They pack each of the bodies in plastic wrap, labeling them with serial numbers and leaving them on the morgue table. Rekha slips out and comes back with a large handbag, big enough for Sailor’s skull.

‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ Jared mutters. He takes the scarf that Rekha is holding out and wraps it carefully around Sailor’s detached, cellophane-covered head.

‘We don’t have a choice,’ Rekha reminds him. She glances around the room one last time, and checks in the drawers to make sure none of their X-rays and test reports have been left behind. ‘I left Anjali’s reports with her,’ she says. ‘Just so it doesn’t seem we cleaned the place out. She only saw a few photographs and X-rays, so there’s nothing left to show that Sailor had her head on when she was brought here.’

To Jared’s amazement, they leave the hospital without incident. There’s no security at the exit, only the entrance, and no one even checks their bags or IDs as they leave.

‘Piece of cake,’ Rekha says when they’re in her car, the thin sheen of sweat along her hairline belying her nervousness. ‘What now?’

‘Can we take Sailor to your institute? We’ll need a lab to run more tests.’

‘I’ll find out. Why don’t I drop you back at your hotel, and you can work there for a while? I’ll check if the institute is safe.’

 

\--

 

‘You won’t believe what I’m looking at right now,’ Jared says into the phone. ‘I can’t say what it is, but my god, Gen, this is so much bigger than I thought.’

‘Why can’t you say what it is? Jared, are you in some sort of danger?’ 

Jared smiles, warming a little at the concern in his friend’s voice. ‘I don’t think so. Not if we’re careful.’

‘Well, then, be careful. This is why Jensen was so against you going there, isn’t it?’ Genevieve says, blunt as ever.

‘I don’t want to talk about him, Gen.’

She sighs. ‘I know. He looks like death warmed up, by the way.’ 

Jared winces. ‘Be nice to him, okay?’

‘Has he called or messaged you at all?’

‘No.’

‘Didn’t think so. Remind me again why I’m supposed to be nice to him?’

Jared sighs. ‘I haven’t contacted him either, Gen. And I’m the one who left.’

 

\--

 

Rekha arrives several hours later, looking annoyed.

‘What happened?’ Jared asks as he lets her in.

‘Well, it turns out that not only can we not take Sailor to the Institute of Advanced Scientific Research, but that we’ve officially been asked to step back from this investigation and focus on our original task, which is to analyze the fifty-year-old bodies that were found at the scene.’

‘Can they do that?’

‘They can, and they did.’

‘What if I call my embassy? See if I can pull some strings?’

Rekha shrugs, sinking into a chair. ‘You can try, but I’ll bet your embassy would rather send you home than get involved in a political incident.’

‘Fuck this. I’m not giving up, Rekha.’

‘Good, because neither am I.’

 

\--

 

They share the bed that night, simply because it’s too late for Rekha to drive back home alone, and Jared’s concerned about letting her spend the night on her own. From the news reports he’s been reading, too many people who’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time have disappeared.

Neither of them feels like going out in public for dinner, so they cover Sailor up and order room service. The boy who brings up the food—Aravinda, Jared remembers—gives him a cheeky smile when he sees Rekha, misreading the situation. Jared gives him an extra-large tip.

‘So,’ Rekha says during dinner, lifting a fork of noodles to her mouth. ‘You got someone at home? A wife? Girlfriend?’

‘I bat for the other side,’ Jared says with a smile.

‘Boyfriend, then?’ Rekha asks with a grin, taking a sip of wine.

‘I… yeah. I guess.’

‘You guess?’ Rekha shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.’

‘It’s okay. It’s just… we didn’t part on very good terms.’

‘I know the feeling,’ she says, shooting him a sympathetic look. ‘You got a picture of him?’

‘Yeah.’ Jared pulls out his phone, flipping to his photos and sliding his finger across the screen until he finds one. He slides the phone across the table.

‘Wow, he’s bloody gorgeous.’

Jared looks down at the screen. Jensen’s smiling up at him. He’d been relaxed that afternoon. It was a Sunday and they’d both been home, messing around with the dogs and generally hanging out doing nothing. He’s wearing his favorite gray t-shirt, and a jolt of nostalgia hits Jared as he recalls the way the soft worn cloth feels against his cheek. ‘Yeah. Yeah, he is.’

Rekha hands his phone back. ‘He’s also very lucky. He’d better be waiting for you, if he knows what’s good for him.’ 

Jared laughs. ‘You sound like my friend Genevieve.’

‘Genevieve is a wise woman,’ Rekha says, lifting her glass. ‘To absent friends.’

‘To absent friends,’ Jared agrees, clinking his glass against hers.

 

\--

 

The next morning, they drive out of the city in a car provided for them by the embassy. Rekha knows an expert who might be able to help, she says. Their official story is that they’re visiting the ruins to get started on their research.

‘When he drops us off at Pollunaruwa, we’ll do some perfunctory work and then take the bus to Kandy,’ she murmurs, too softly for the driver to hear them. ‘The expert I mentioned is a bit of a hermit. He lives just outside Kandy.’

‘Wow,’ Jared whispers when the car stops in front of the heritage site. Facing them is a massive reclining statue of the Buddha, and behind the statue are tall rocks with inscriptions and intricate carvings, spread out wide over the landscape.

‘How big is this place?’ Jared asks as they hitch their bags over their shoulders, and proceed on foot.

‘Several hundred acres, I should think.’ Rekha points to a group of statues a few hundred meters away from them. ‘A Duran Duran video was shot there,’ she says with a wry smile. ‘That’s probably what this place is most famous for, at least outside Sri Lanka.’

They walk for around ten minutes, passing several more sculptures and a couple of temples, before they reach an area cordoned off with yellow tape.

‘This is where the bodies were found by a team of archeologists a couple of weeks ago,’ Rekha says. ‘It’s closed off to the public at the moment.’ She grins. ‘If not for a couple of team members tweeting their findings immediately, the government might have gotten away with never letting the discovery be known.’

Once inside the caves, they take some samples of soil from the ground. There are a few more half-uncovered skeletons, clearly decades old, and they take some bone samples as well, in case anyone checks to see if they’re working on their actual project.

When they get back to the entrance, they’re surprised to find the car still waiting for them.

‘I thought I told you to leave,’ Rekha says, frowning.

‘I’m sorry, madam. I thought you wanted to travel to Kandy,’ the driver says smoothly. 

Rekha and Jared exchange a look. ‘Who told you that?’ she asks.

The driver looks around, and then lowers his voice. ‘I heard you earlier, madam. My name is Faran Tahir. My father and brother were killed in the Colombo riots last year. If I can bring their killers to justice, there is nothing I would like more than to help you.’

Rekha looks at Jared, who shrugs. The man seems sincere enough, and it’s not like visiting an old scientist is a crime; they can just as easily claim, if asked, that they were taking the Pollunaruwa samples to be analyzed. 

‘We’re not investigating anything of the sort,’ Rekha says firmly, turning back to Tahir. ‘We are simply taking some bones samples to Kandy for analysis by a professional.’

‘Of course, madam.’

Jared’s skin prickles a little at the man’s tone, and he can tell that Rekha is uneasy as well, but they say nothing else as they get into the car.

 

\--

 

At Kandy, they get dropped off at a restaurant for a late lunch, picking a table in a far corner, away from most of the others.

‘What do you think?’ Jared asks once they’ve ordered prawn curry and steamed rice. ‘Can he be trusted?’

‘I don’t think so, but he doesn’t know where we’re really headed, does he? I’ll get rid of him, and we’ll get a rental car or a cab.’

They subside into silence as they eat, famished after the long journey. The curry is flavored with coconut, and absolutely delicious. 

‘This tastes just like the curry our cook used to make when I was a kid,’ Jared says, surprised.

Rekha shrugs. ‘Traditional recipes don’t tend to change much.’

Jared takes another bite, savoring the flavors of coriander and turmeric. ‘I’m more surprised that I remember the taste so well, actually. Some sort of sense memory, I guess.’

‘Redolence, huh?’ Rekha says with a smile.

‘Exactly. I can almost smell the wooden floorboards of the house we lived in.’

Rekha orders an Indian sweet for dessert, carrot halwa, ‘just to mix things up’. 

‘You’re Indian, aren’t you?’ Jared asks as they dig into the sweet. 

‘Officially, I’m a Sri Lankan national now, but yes, I have an Indian passport too. My parents decided to move here when I was little.’

‘And do you have a significant other? If I may ask.’

She waves a dismissive hand, but she’s smiling. ‘Not anymore. No regrets, though.’ She glances up at him. ‘You missing your guy?’

‘Like crazy,’ Jared confesses.

‘You should call him, you know.’

‘Maybe I will,’ Jared says with a smile.

Rekha shrugs. ‘Just my two cents. Or two paisa, if you prefer. Life’s too short for regrets.’

The Grove of Ascetics is easily one of the most beautiful places Jared has ever been in. They get a rental car and drive out of the city after lunch, following the same highway they’d taken from Colombo. The forest is around thirty minutes away. Everything, as Rekha puts it, is within screaming distance in Sri Lanka. 

The forest is another heritage zone, and they park the car at the entrance and proceed on foot. There’s a hush over the area, a thick canopy of branches over their heads, so dense in some places that the sky isn’t even visible.

‘There are stories about this place,’ Rekha whispers. ‘That in some areas, deep in the forest, the canopy is meters thick, and that there are creatures who dwell up there, treating the bed of branches as the ground, as unaware of the world below as the world is of them.’

Jared stares at her. ‘Are you making this up?’

Rekha grins widely. ‘You’ll never know, will you?’

There are a few ancient statues along the worn, winding path. Occasionally, Rekha points to one of them and tells Jared a fantastic story associated with it. The glint of mischief in her eyes makes him believe that she’s pulling his leg half the time, but the stories are entertaining nonetheless, and he’s enjoying her company.

They reach a massive old oak tree with a wooden platform on it, clearly a makeshift treehouse, and Jared is suddenly reminded of Lothlorien from _The Lord of the Rings_. He says as much, and Rekha gives him a broad smile. ‘Exactly what I thought when I first came here. I expected to hear Elven song at any moment,’ she says, and then gives him a sudden hug. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Jared.’

‘Me too,’ he says, returning the hug.

They pull apart as they hear a rustle behind them, and Jared turns to see a girl of around fifteen or sixteen. She’s wearing a mismatched outfit, a shirt of dull green and a gaily patterned blue and orange skirt.

‘Lakma,’ Rekha says, smiling warmly at the girl. They exchange a few words in Sinhalese, too rapidly for Jared to follow what they’re saying.

Rekha turns to Jared. ‘He’s expecting us,’ she says.

 

\--

 

The girl leads them off the dirt path, down a winding stone staircase to a large pond with glittering green water and a multitude of lilies. Beyond the pond is an astonishingly large house.

‘I thought you said he was an ascetic,’ Jared mutters, and Rekha elbows him. 

‘Ssh! He’ll hear you.’

A tall, elderly man appears on the porch, his snow-white hair down to his shoulders and a wooden staff in his hand.

‘Elrond,’ Jared says immediately, and Rekha stifles a giggle.

‘Lothlorien,’ she whispers. ‘Not Rivendell.’ Jared stares after her, impressed, as she leaves his side and goes to greet the man.

‘Palipana,’ she says, and bends down to touch the man’s feet. Jared does the same, recognizing it as a show of respect, and feels the ascetic’s cool, dry hand touch the crown of his head in what is presumably a blessing.

‘You’ve come far,’ Palipana observes. It’s only when he feels around for his chair that Jared realizes he’s blind. He looks inquiringly at Rekha.

‘Patience,’ she mouths.

‘You should rest,’ Palipana says, settling in his chair. ‘There will be time for talk later. Lakma will show you to the guest rooms.’

 

\--

 

‘This place is incredible,’ Jared says as Lakma leads them down a cool stone corridor to the interior of the house.

‘I think it used to be a palace, or at least a summer house,’ Rekha says. ‘Palipana has opened it out to guests, but he’s very selective about whom he invites here.’

‘I guess we’re lucky, then.’

‘Very. You’ll see later, when we talk to him, just how brilliant he is. He used to be the head of the archaeology department at Colombo University. They say he’s still better than any archaeologist alive, even without his sight.’

 

\--

 

Just before sunset, Lakma arrives to escort them back to the veranda. Palipana is sitting there, and Jared can’t tell if he’s been there all along, or if he’d gone in and just come back out.

He isn’t alone. ‘This is Assaf,’ he says, gesturing toward the man sitting by his side. Assaf gives them a nod, and quickly excuses himself and disappears into the house.

‘Assaf is an artist,’ Palipana says, sounding a little amused. ‘He is unused to the company of strangers, and prefers his own. But I suspect he will be of some use to you.’

‘How?’ Rekha asks.

‘Impatient as ever, child,’ Palipana says with a laugh. ‘First tell me why you both are here, and then I shall tell you Assaf’s story, with his permission.’

‘We need your help.’ Rekha gestures to Jared, and he places Sailor’s unwrapped skull carefully in the old man’s lap.

‘Tell me what you know.’ Palipana places his hands on top of the skull, holding it with reverence, and Jared relaxes a little. He quickly summarizes what he’s found out so far, and Palipana nods as he talks, not interrupting, listening with his head tilted toward Jared.

‘Good,’ he says approvingly. ‘Very good. This young woman, from what you recount, was very clearly a miner.’

‘Of course!’ Rekha smacks her forehead. ‘That explains why she used her arms so much, but not her feet!’ She turns to Jared. ‘Mines over here—especially the coal mines—have very low tunnels,’ she explains. ‘Most of the miners work squatting.’

Palipana nods. ‘I think you’ll find coal residue in her bones if you run some basic tests. My laboratory is a little rudimentary, but you’ll find the necessary tools.’

‘We can’t thank you enough,’ Jared says. ‘This is such a tremendous help.’ He glances at Rekha. ‘There can’t be many twenty-year-old miners who went missing six months ago. Rekha, we may actually get to find out who Sailor really was.’

 

\--

 

The ‘rudimentary’ laboratory turns out to have state-of-the-art equipment. Looking around, Jared lets out a low whistle. ‘Who is this guy, really?’

Rekha chuckles. ‘One of the most brilliant minds of our time. Don’t tell him I told you, but his career ended after a plagiarism accusation. No one knows for sure if he was really guilty or if someone successfully sabotaged his career, but soon after the case, he retreated to the woods.’

Jared’s phone beeps, startling him. ‘Satellite phone signals,’ Rekha says with a wink. ‘Some ascetic, huh?’

Jared grins, glancing at his phone. It’s a message from Genevieve. _You still alive out there?_

 _I’m fine_ , he types back quickly. _Don’t worry._

 _Good_ , comes the reply a few seconds later. _Your kids miss you._

_Give them a hug from me._

_I will. Oh, and before you ask, I haven’t seen J. :-P_

Jared slides the phone back into his pocket. 

‘Bad news?’ Rekha asks, noticing the expression on his face.

‘Not really.’

‘More like no news, huh?’

‘Something like that, yeah.’

‘Let’s distract you with work, okay?’

They scrape a few more fragments from Sailor’s skull, and get to work.

 

\--

 

Early the next morning, Jared takes a chance and calls Jensen’s phone. He knows it’s not like Jensen to miss work, and if he’d been at the hospital, Gen would have seen him; she’s in the same internship program that Jared had briefly joined when he had audited the chiropractic seminars. 

Jensen’s phone goes straight to voicemail, and Jared hangs up in frustration. It’s good, though, however briefly, to hear Jensen’s voice say, _Hi, you know what to do._ It must be around nine p.m. where Jensen is. Maybe he’s on his way home from work, Jared reasons, and then remembers that Jensen probably isn’t going home at all.

He opens a new message to find that the draft he’d typed after landing in Colombo is still in his unsent messages. Sick at heart, he puts his phone away and goes to check on Sailor.

Given the way his life has changed over the last few weeks, Sailor is, in some ways, the only constant he has. He’s taken to wishing her good night, and greeting her in the morning when he wakes up. In a way, he’s selfishly dissociated her from whatever she’d been during her life, completely disregarded her identity, her memories, given her a frivolous name and separated her head from her body with utter disrespect for who she’d been. In another way, she’s the most important part of his life right now, a ghost that he’s slowly piecing together in the most important task of his life so far, trying to discover her identity so that he can find her killers and put her, at long last, to rest.

 

\--

 

‘Copper,’ Jared says. ‘She worked in a copper mine, not a coal mine.’

‘Are you sure?’ Rekha asks.

‘Yeah.’ He points to the cross-section of the bone that he’s been running tests on. ‘Look at this,’ he says, taking her by the elbow and steering her toward a microscope.

Rekha peers in, and then looks up. ‘That’s odd,’ she says. ‘There’s far too little decomposition for someone who died over six months ago.’

‘I think it’s because she was killed and buried in the mines where she worked. There’s a famous story in a textbook about a body known only as Copper Man. Copper Man was a miner, killed when a section of the tunnel he was working in collapsed on him. He was found long after he died, but his skin and bones were almost perfectly preserved by the coating of copper on him. Copper is anti-bacterial and anti-fungal.’

‘So Sailor’s bones are well-preserved, but her skin didn’t stand a chance because she was burned.’

Jared nods. ‘I think there might have been some traces of skin on her left leg, but we’ll need to run more tests for that, if we ever get access to the bodies again. But my best guess is that her bone tissue survived because of the copper in the mines where she was first buried.’

‘A copper mine in an area with alluvial soil.’ Rekha smiles up at him. ‘I think we’re close to bringing Sailor home.’

 

\--

 

‘There are abandoned copper mines not very far from Kandy,’ Assaf tells them at dinner. ‘And if I recall correctly, they they've been barely functional for months.’ It's the most Jared has heard him speak so far. Palipana is absent, since he usually retires early in the evening.

‘I think this is it,’ Rekha says, her eyes shining. ‘The miners must've been killed there, and their bodies burned and buried in shallow temporary graves.’

‘And sometime during the last six months, Sailor was transported to Pollunaruwa, and buried there,’ Jared finishes.

‘Why relocate only Sailor, though?’ Rekha muses. ‘Unless she was the only victim. Or someone was looking for her.’

‘Think we can ask the local police if there was a missing person’s report filed for someone of Sailor’s age and profession?’

‘I don’t know how helpful they’ll be, but we can try.’

‘You must ask the people, not the authorities,’ Assaf, who has been listening quietly, advises them. ‘Talk to the waiters at hotels, the flower sellers on the roadside, the autoricksha drivers. And here is where I must show you how Palipana thinks I can help you.’

 

\--

 

‘Can this really be done?’ Jared murmurs, low enough so only Rekha can hear him.

She shrugs. ‘It’s possible, I guess. If Assaf’s really one of the artists from a Buddha temple, as Palipana says, he must be immensely talented. Did you know they paint the eyes on a Buddha statue by looking at it in a mirror and painting over their shoulder? Because of the belief that no one should look the Buddha directly in the eyes.’

Assaf seems extremely sure of himself, but Jared feels a pang as the artist rolls a bit of green plasticine between his palms and presses it to Sailor’s face, beginning the act of reconstructing her features. 

‘Let’s leave him to it,’ Rekha whispers, squeezing Jared’s arm.

 

\--

 

A week later, Assaf is still at work. Jared still has bone fragments to work with, but there isn’t much left to find that forensic science can help him with. He and Rekha spend most of their time talking to Palipana—who is brilliant, plagiarist or not—and taking walks through the forest, sometimes together and sometimes by themselves. 

For Jared, the nights are easily the worst periods of the time he spends at the Grove of Ascetics. Maybe it’s mostly because he knows that Jensen’s awake at the time, probably at work, maybe just a phone call away. One night, when he’s just gotten undressed for bed, he picks up his phone on an impulse and calls Jensen.

There’s no response. Jared turns off his phone and just barely resists the urge to throw it against the wall.

The next morning, when the grove is attacked, Jared realizes that the harmony of the forest had lulled him into a kind of spell, made him forget, impossibly, that there was a war on.

The attack is swift and silent. He wakes with a blow to his head, feeling sharp pain and opening his eyes to find a gun in his face, and Faran Tahir’s face behind the weapon.

‘Stand up,’ Tahir orders. ‘Hands behind your back.’

Jared stumbles to his feet, still half-asleep. His arms are wrenched behind his back and bound with coarse rope. He’s dragged out into the veranda, still in his sweat pants and t-shirt, and finds Rekha already there, similarly bound.

‘Get their belongings,’ Tahir snaps to a couple of his men. ‘Make sure nothing’s left behind.’

Two more men emerge from the house, dragging Assaf along. One of them is carrying Sailor’s head.

‘What is this,’ Tahir snarls, his face close to Assaf’s. Assaf gives him his patented blank stare, and Tahir hits him across the face.

‘Don’t!’ Rekha cries. ‘Please, don’t hurt him. It’s just a project we were working on.’

‘Speak again and I’ll blow your head off,’ Tahir says calmly. He looks at the man carrying the skull. ‘Put it in the truck. We’ll figure it out later.’ He looks between Jared and Rekha. ‘You covered your tracks well, but no one can hide in Sri Lanka for too long, doctors. Now, you go where you’re needed. Where your worthless lives can be of some value.’

‘People know where we are,’ Jared says. ‘You can’t hold us.’

Tahir hits him with the muzzle of his gun, a glancing blow across his temple that sends Jared to his knees, blinking blood from his eyes. ‘Speak again and I’ll shatter both your kneecaps,’ he says.

A black cloth bag is yanked over Jared’s head and bound securely. He’s dragged to his feet and pushed into the back of the militants’ truck, his head spinning. He’s only half-conscious during the journey, but it seems to take hours.

 

\--

 

He wakes in a dimly-lit room. He’s lying on the floor, his hands still bound behind his back, his ankles tied together.

‘Thank goodness you’re awake,’ Rekha whispers from beside him. ‘I was so scared they’d hurt you badly.’

‘I’m okay. I think.’ Jared struggles into a sitting position. ‘Have they hurt you?’

Rekha shakes her head. 

‘Assaf?’

‘I don’t know where he is.’

‘Where are we? The mines?’

‘I think so.’ The place smells strongly of copper, and is clearly subterranean.

‘There are caves full of wounded people,’ Rekha whispers. ‘Militants, I think. They must’ve brought us here to tend to them.’

‘Why us? We aren’t doctors.’

‘You heard Tahir earlier. He must think we’re medical doctors. Don’t tell him the truth. I’m guessing it’s the only thing keeping us alive.’

‘They’re bound to find out sooner or later,’ Jared whispers back. He’s fighting back nausea from the pain in his head. He closes his eyes for a moment. 

‘You need stitches,’ Rekha says, sounding distressed. ‘I hope you haven’t lost too much blood.’

‘I think I’ll be okay. It doesn’t seem too deep.’

‘Awake, doctors?’ Tahir’s voice booms through the claustrophobically small space.

Jared shifts closer to Rekha. ‘What do you want with us?’

‘I think you already know. There are freedom fighters here who need medical care.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Jared says quickly. ‘Let Dr Sharma go.’

Tahir laughs. ‘I don’t think so. I can shoot her through the head, but that would be a waste of a professional.’

‘You’re going to kill us anyway,’ Rekha says. 

‘Yes, but not today.’ Tahir smiles. ‘Now, are you ready to get to work?’

 

\--

 

They let Rekha stitch up the wound on Jared’s head when she insists that he needs care before he can help others. Afterward, they’re both led out into the main tunnel of the mines, which is much larger than the tiny space in which they’d been imprisoned. Row after row of stretchers is laid out across the floor, filled with wounded men and women, some moaning with pain, some unconscious.

Jared spends the next six hours making lists of medicines to be brought, and using whatever he can find at hand to create makeshift bandages. When they bring him full cartons of the supplies he’s asked for, he doesn’t question where they found it, just uses the bandages and painkillers as best he can. When he begins to reach the end of his reserves of strength, he imagines what Jensen must have gone through during his days as an army surgeon. He pretends he’s in a war zone with Jensen working beside him, taking strength from the invisible presence at his side. If Jensen could do it, so can he.

A week passes in a blur. They’re allowed to sleep at midnight and are woken at six, and work throughout the day. More and more wounded come in, injured by military weapons in the course of their attacks. Jared has no sympathy either for his patients or their enemy. He works methodically, patching up wounds as best he can, even performing an improvised surgery or two every day to get out shrapnel from wounds, but never when the wounds are too deep. He tells Tahir, honestly enough, that he isn’t a surgeon.

They don’t see Assaf at all. Sailor’s head lies in a corner of their cell, her face half-finished, still almost unrecognizable. Just as it had been a constant in Jared’s life, it now becomes a source of despair. Just days ago, all he’d wanted was to help her, find who she was, tell her family that she’d been found, that she could be put to rest. But now, the frantic desire to get away is always uppermost on his mind. There’s no real chance of escape, because the way out of the mines is closely guarded at all times. Rekha is also a source of worry: she’s been running a fever for a couple of days, and the antibiotics they’ve asked for don’t seem to be helping.

On the eighth day, when Jared has almost become used to his everyday routine, he’s bound again and dragged into the elevator that leads out of the mine, and shoved into the truck.

He doesn’t see Rekha again, and his desperate questions about her remain unanswered.

 

\--

 

The new camp is in a field, canvas tents set up in a row. Jared is the only ‘doctor’ now, and he’s reduced to four hours of sleep every night. For the first few days he all but begs to be told about Rekha’s fate, but is met with blank stares from his captors. Tahir is the leader of the group, the only one who appears to know English, or perhaps he’s warned the others about talking to Jared.

‘Is this fucking Mercurochrome necessary?’ he says on the second day, flinging Jared’s list of drugs at his chest. ‘Do you know how fucking difficult it is to find?’

Jared shrugs. ‘Suit yourself. If you don’t get it, your people’s injuries are likely to turn septic.’ 

Tahir snatches up the piece of paper and stalks out of the tent, grumbling. 

Some nights, lying awake before he waits for sleep to claim him, Jared wonders if Jensen even knows that he’s missing. If he’d even care if he did.

Three weeks later, Jared’s learned a lot more about the civil war in the country than he’d known earlier. The militants belong to an insurgent group known as the LTTE, a name he’s familiar with from his childhood: since the early 1980s, they’ve been fighting the government for a separate country of their own. Many members of the group are very young. All of them refer to themselves as freedom fighters rather than militants.

He speaks to a few of the men in broken Sinhalese, developing a strange sort of camaraderie with his captors and becoming a reluctant participant in the camp and its activities. He eats with them, borrows their cut-throat style razors to shave every other day. Tahir becomes a little more civil after he sees Jared getting along with the rest, even apologizing gruffly for having injured Jared. Some of the men come back from battle in bags, and their bodies are quickly burned on a communal pyre that’s been built for the purpose some distance away from the camp. Some of them come back still alive, and he can barely recognize them under the blood and the torn flesh. 

Four weeks after they had fled the camp in the mines, the commandos invade. They gun down the militants with lethal precision. Jared stays in his tent, waiting to be found. There’s no excitement in him; even the adrenaline in his system seems to be defunct now. There’s just more of the deadly calm, filling him with inaction.

A few minutes after the gunfire dies down, he hears a familiar, impossible voice calling his name.

‘Jared! Jared!’

He stumbles to his feet and out of the tent.

‘Jared,’ Jensen says, his voice a half-sob, hoarse from screaming Jared’s name. ‘Jared, Jared, thank god.’

And then Jensen’s arms are around him, tight, squeezing like a vise, and Jared stumbles and falls, sending them both to the ground. ‘You can’t be here,’ Jared says, numb, beyond feeling. ‘You aren’t here.’ 

‘I’m here, Jay. I’m here.’


	3. Chapter 3

 

‘You’re really here,’ Jared says, blinking. His voice comes out hoarse, like he’s been screaming for hours.

‘Hey,’ Jensen says, a ghost of a smile on his face. ‘You had me worried. You’ve been out for three days.’

‘Where are we?’

‘Memorial Street Hospital, in Colombo. You remember what happened?’

‘They took us from the forest. Rekha. And Assaf. Are they…’

‘They’re fine. They’re both fine, Jay.’ Jensen offers him a glass of water, and Jared takes a cautious sip.

‘Did they get Tahir?’

‘Nope. His body wasn’t found. I can’t believe the asshole was driving us around the whole time, and I didn’t know he’d taken you.’

‘He thinks he’s a freedom fighter. They all did.’

‘Maybe they are. But no one has the right to kill, Jared. I won’t believe that.’ Jensen holds up the glass of water again. ‘More?’

Jared shakes his head. ‘How did you find us?’

‘The Mercurochrome on your lists. We watched the pharmacies that stocked it, and followed one of the suppliers back to the camp. You did it, Jay. You were brilliant.’

‘Did what?’ Jared asks, confused. 

‘Prescribed Mercurochrome. So we could find you.’

Jared looks at him blankly for a moment. ‘Jensen, I didn’t… I wasn’t thinking about leaving a clue. I just couldn’t remember what the substitutes were called.’

 

\--

 

Jensen isn’t there the next time Jared wakes up, and he walks to Rekha’s room with an orderly’s help. She’s sitting up in bed, and she pulls him close and hugs him tightly.

‘I thought they’d killed you,’ Jared says, and only realizes he’s crying when Rekha reaches up to wipe his face. 

‘They didn’t hurt me,’ she says. ‘My fever was bad. I guess they thought I was dying.’

‘You were both very lucky,’ a voice with an English accent says from the doorway, and Jared turns to see a woman with short dark hair and an elegant business suit.

‘This is Caroline,’ Rekha says with a smile. ‘She and Jensen found you.’

Caroline smiles, holding out her hand, and Jared shakes it on reflex. ‘I’m glad you’re safe, Jared. All three of you.’

Jared returns to his room in a few minutes, exhausted from the journey down the corridor, and falls into a deep sleep. When he wakes again, Jensen is sitting in the chair beside his bed. They haven’t talked much over the last few days, but the silences between them aren’t as uncomfortable as Jared had feared.

‘Hey,’ Jensen says now, leaning forward to put a hand on Jared’s arm. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Good,’ Jared says, pleased to hear that his voice is somewhat stronger now. ‘I’m good.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ Jensen says lightly.

‘When was the last time you slept in an actual bed?’ Jared asks.

Jensen shrugs. ‘Doesn’t matter. You’re here, you’re all right. That’s the only thing that matters.’

 

\--

 

A week later, Jared goes to Rekha’s office at the institute of advanced research. Jensen is with him, and they’re on their way to the airport, Jared having been discharged from the hospital a few hours earlier.

‘Hey,’ Rekha says, smiling broadly. She gets up from her chair with a little difficulty, coming around her desk to give Jared a hug.

‘Easy,’ Jared says, hugging her gently.

‘We’re both the walking wounded, huh?’ she says with a little laugh. She waves her hand toward the desk. ‘Look what Assaf dropped off this morning.’

It’s Sailor’s face, fully reconstructed.

‘It isn’t her,’ Rekha says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look at it, Jared. It’s just… a quiet, peaceful face. I spoke to Palipana on the phone. He told me Assaf’s wife was one of the people who’d gone missing in the last riots. He wasn’t creating Sailor’s face at all. He just wanted to give Sailor a peaceful face, because he wanted that for his wife. For all the people who’ve been murdered, for their families.’

‘So we’re back to square zero?’

‘No, absolutely not. After you went missing, the Human Rights Commission got involved, and now that I’ve recovered enough, I’ve been given permission to continue working on Sailor’s case. I won’t make an official report, Jared. Not after what happened.’ She smiles ruefully. ‘I don’t want to die. But I swear to you that I’ll do everything to find Sailor’s identify based on your profile of her, and maybe her family will finally get some closure.’

 

\--

 

Jared sleeps almost all the way through the sixteen-hour flight back home. Outside the terminal, he and Jensen get coffee from a stall, and sit together on a bench. They don’t talk, and Jensen looks as exhausted as Jared feels.

Jared finishes his coffee and gets to his feet, tossing his empty cup into a trash can. ‘I need to go to Gen’s,’ he says, hitching his bag higher over his shoulder. ‘See the dogs.’

‘Okay.’ Jensen nods, taking a step back. ‘Okay, I’ll get you a cab and we can—you can—’

‘Hey.’ Jared closes the distance between them, reaching out to touch Jensen’s face. ‘You’re coming with me, right?’

Jensen hesitates, and Jared wonders for a panicked moment if he’s read the situation all wrong. ‘You do want to come with me, right?’

‘Yeah, Jay. I want to.’

‘Oh my god.’ Jared lets his hand drop. ‘You really don’t.’

‘It’s not that,’ Jensen says quickly. ‘You’ve been through so much, and I didn’t exactly make you happy in the days before you left, and…’

Jared’s shaking his head now, stepping back further. ‘It’s okay, Jensen, really it is. I get it.’

Jensen shuts his eyes for a moment, letting out a frustrated sound. ‘Fuck, Jared. I didn’t go halfway across the fucking planet to do this again.’

Jared turns away, his eyes stinging. ‘Then why did you come?’

‘For you, all right? To bring you back home. Not to do this, Jay. Not to fight with you.’

‘I don’t even know if this is home anymore.’ Jared squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. There’s a howl of misery somewhere inside him, fighting to get out.

‘Jared, are you okay?’ Jensen sounds alarmed. 

He takes a step closer, but Jared moves away. ‘I gotta go. We—we’ll talk later, okay?’

 

\--

 

Genevieve and Danneel give him a welcome that’s almost as enthusiastic as the dogs’, all five of them tumbling together in a heap of joy and excitement.

Afterwards, he takes a shower and collapses into bed, and sleeps for fifteen hours straight.

He doesn’t hear from Jensen at all.

The day after he reaches Gen and Danneel’s place, he finally feels up to communicating with someone other than the dogs, and emerges sheepishly from the guest room. Gen’s at work but Danneel greets him warmly, offering coffee and muffins still hot from the oven. He doesn’t talk much and she doesn’t push him, both of them sitting at the table in amicable silence until she finishes her coffee and leaves him to himself, disappearing into her room after giving his shoulder a quick squeeze.

He calls Jensen’s cell phone. It goes straight to voicemail and he hangs up without leaving a message, feeling like he’s been punched in the stomach.

Jensen calls back twenty minutes later. ‘Jared? You doing okay? I saw your call.’

‘Yeah, I—I’m fine. How about you?’

‘I was with a patient.’

‘You’re at work?’

‘Yeah, one of my patients called in with an emergency.’

‘Oh.’

‘I gotta go,’ Jensen says. Jared can hear someone in the background. ‘I’ll talk to you soon, okay?’ He hangs up before Jared can answer.

 

\--

 

A few days pass without event. Jared stays in Gen’s guest room, and starts to take the dogs out for short runs in the mornings when he starts feeling stronger. A week after his return, he gets an email from Rekha.

_Dear Jared,_

_Her name was Sirisha. She was nineteen, the oldest of four children. She dropped out of school five years ago to go to work in the mines so she could help her mother feed the family. Her father is AWOL, apparently._

_I had her remains cremated and gave her ashes to her mother. She cried in my arms. I told her some of the story about how we’d found Sirisha, how she’d never have found her way back home without you. Her mother sends you her regards, and her thanks. They say a mother’s blessing is the most powerful you can receive._

_Palipana passed away in his sleep last week. The doctors said his heart couldn’t take the shock of the attack on the grove. Lakma will continue to live there, and keep it open to visitors, as her uncle had wished. We should go back and visit someday, when all this madness is done._

_Last week, I went to a temple to watch a ceremony. I’m not religious, but it was Assaf’s first day back at work. I watched him paint the Buddha’s eyes over his shoulder, facing a mirror. It was magical._

_Be well, my friend, and stay in touch._

_Rekha_

 

Gen comes home from work to find Jared at the table, sobbing into his hands. 

 

\--

 

He lets the days pass. He applies for a job or two, mostly half-heartedly, unsure that he wants to remain in the profession anymore. Some nights he wakes up screaming, frightening the dogs and his roommates. Gen and Danneel have both offered to let him stay as long as he likes, and he starts paying them rent, despite their protests; if he’s going to be staying long-term, he can’t be a burden on them.

He speaks to Jensen once every few days, nothing more than brief calls. Sometimes he calls Jensen, and sometimes Jensen calls him. They haven’t met in weeks. He’s afraid to extend their phone conversations, worried that their talk will deteriorate into fighting. Talking to Jensen for a few minutes at a time is better than not talking at all. He’s learned that the hard way.

One evening, Jared can’t stand being inside the apartment anymore. He grabs his coat and lets himself out, the dogs sound asleep on his bed. Halfway down the stairs he wishes he’d taken one of them along, but part of him knows where he’s headed, and it’s just as well.

Jensen’s not home. Jared sits down on the bench seat on the porch. He remembers a night a lifetime ago: it was his birthday, and he’d come home to find Jensen sitting on the steps. He’d give a lot now to see Jensen’s face light up the way it had when he’d seen Jared come home that night. This year, he’d spent his birthday in a militant camp, not even remembering the date. 

He doesn’t even realize he’s fallen asleep until he startles awake when Jensen’s hand touches his arm. ‘Hey,’ Jensen says. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. You okay? What’re you doing here?’

‘Nothing.’ Jared scrubs at his eyes. ‘Wanted to see you.’

‘You want me to drive you back?’

Jared stares up at him. ‘You just got home.’

‘I just thought…’ Jensen shakes his head, as if to clear it. ‘You look tired, that’s all.’

‘Jensen, what’s going on? Why won’t you talk to me?’

Jensen sits down next to him, letting out an exhausted sigh. ‘Nothing’s going on, Jared. I just didn’t want to assume anything, you know?’

‘Assume what? I’ve told you I want to see you. Multiple times.’

‘I don’t want to end up hurting you again, Jared. I did it before, didn’t I? And I told you before, I just… I don’t know how to be with people. I don’t know how to be in a relationship. If I end up neglecting you again, and you run off again…’

‘I didn’t run off,’ Jared says, indignant. ‘I was giving you space. I was giving us both time to think.’

‘And you ended up nearly getting killed.’

‘Fuck.’ Jared drops his head into his hands. ‘I can’t believe this. After everything, we’re still right where we were. Nothing’s changed.’

Jensen says nothing. For a long moment, Jared just breathes, willing himself to calm down. When he looks up again, Jensen says, ‘I can’t do this right now.’

‘Yeah. Me either.’ Jared gets up, picking up his jacket and slinging it over his shoulder. ‘I’ll get out of your way.’

Jensen’s hand closes around his wrist. ‘Jay, we’re both exhausted. But don’t… don’t go away mad.’

‘I’m not mad, Jen. You’re right, we’re tired. I shouldn’t be pushing you into anything.’

Jensen’s thumb rubs against the pulse point on Jared’s wrist. ‘You want to come in? And just, I don’t know—sleep?’

Jared looks down at Jensen’s hand on his wrist. He nods, all the resistance draining out of him.

Jensen gets to his feet, letting go of Jared’s hand. ‘Come on.’

 

\--

 

Jensen’s already in bed when Jared emerges from the bathroom in his t-shirt and boxers. He’s left a light on but he’s under the covers, his eyes closed.

Jared stops beside the bed, hesitant, but Jensen opens his eyes and turns his head. ‘Hey,’ he says, his voice hoarse with tiredness. ‘Come here.’ He stretches out an arm in invitation.

Jared crawls in under the covers, letting Jensen wrap an arm around him, laying his head on Jensen’s shoulder. ‘This okay?’ he asks, his face pressed into Jensen’s neck.

‘More than okay,’ Jensen murmurs into his hair. Jared presses closer against him. ‘Sleep, Jay.’ Jensen’s fingers begin sifting gently through his hair. Jared pushes a hand up beneath Jensen’s t-shirt, his palm against Jensen’s skin, and is asleep in a minute.

 

\--

 

He wakes up slowly, vague memories of dreams slipping away from his conscious mind like grains of sand. He doesn’t really mind that he can’t remember.

Jensen’s arm is still around him, holding him close, his breath in Jared’s hair.

‘Hey,’ Jensen says. ‘You awake?’

‘Yeah.’ Jared doesn’t move. ‘How long was I asleep?’

‘All night.’ Jensen nods toward the windows. The sun’s streaming in through the curtains.

‘Shit, I never told Gen I was staying out.’

‘It’s okay. I called her last night after you fell asleep.’

‘Oh. Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’ Jensen sounds a little amused. ‘You can stop being formal around me whenever you like.’

Jared huffs out a little laugh against Jensen’s chest. ‘Sorry. I guess I kinda made you let me sleep with you, huh.’

‘Hey, I don’t let just anyone into my bed,’ Jensen says lightly. He rubs his chin against the top of Jared’s head.

Jared lifts his head. ‘You aren’t throwing me out of bed just yet, right?’

‘Why?’ Jensen reaches up to tuck a strand of Jared’s hair behind his ear. ‘Did you have something in mind?’

‘Don’t mess with me, Jen.’ Jared glances down at Jensen’s mouth, and then back up to his eyes.

‘I’m not.’ Jensen frames his face with one hand, his thumb rubbing beneath Jared’s eye. ‘Anything you want, Jared. I’m all yours.’

‘I thought we were going to talk.’ Jared leans closer, his breath against Jensen’s lips.

‘Nah, talking’s overrated. Don’t you think?’ Jensen curls a hand into Jared’s hair and pulls his head down for a kiss. Jared groans, his lips parting instantly to let Jensen’s tongue in. He sucks on it like he’s starving for it. It’s wet and filthy and perfect, nothing tentative at all about the way they explore each other’s mouths. Jared’s getting harder by the second, pushing against Jensen with growing need. ‘Jen,’ he pants into Jensen’s mouth. ‘Jen, I—’

‘What do you want? Anything.’

‘Want you. God, Jen, I want you so bad.’

They rock together, Jared almost whimpering with every thrust at how good it feels. Despite two layers of clothes between them, it feels more intimate than anything they’ve done before. Jensen’s fingers grasp at Jared’s back, his face against Jared’s neck. He presses his lips there, murmuring nonsense, his hands sliding down to cup Jared’s ass, pulling him in as he wraps his legs around Jared. Jared kisses him desperately, thrusting harder against him. He’s not going to last, not when Jensen’s making those sounds and pushing up against him, his thighs clamping tight around Jared’s hips.

When Jensen comes, it’s with a quiet intake of breath, his back arching high, his head thrown back, eyes shut tight. Jared slides down between Jensen’s legs, tugging his boxers down. He licks at the wetness on his stomach, fucking his own fist and coming with the taste of Jensen in his mouth.

He catches his breath with his face pressed against Jensen’s thigh, Jensen’s fingers wound tight in his hair. Jensen tugs him up and lets him collapse on top of him. They lie like that for a while, kissing languidly, until Jensen pushes him off.

‘Good?’ Jared asks, searching Jensen’s face.

‘Fucking perfect.’ Jensen runs a hand up Jared’s arm. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m great. You?’

Jensen rolls over onto his front with a contented sigh. ‘Give me a moment to recover, and I’ll show you just how okay I am.’

Jared laughs, throwing a leg over both of Jensen’s and settling in. ‘You’re not recovering from that anytime soon, old man.’

‘Yeah?’ Jensen’s fingers start playing with Jared’s hair, scratching against his scalp just the way Jared loves, and he curls around Jensen, letting himself fall into sleep again.

 

\--

 

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m late.’ Jensen throws a pillow at Jared’s face. ‘Wake up, you big lump.’

Jared pulls the pillow off his face, blinking sleepily. ‘You throwing me out?’

‘Yes,’ Jensen says firmly. ‘Get up and get your clothes on. I’ll drop you off on the way to work.’

‘Five more minutes.’ Jared rolls over and buries his face in the pillow.

‘Fine.’ Jensen kisses the side of his head.

‘Love you,’ Jared says into the pillow.

When his eyes open again, the house is quiet. There’s a note on the pillow beside his head. _There’s food in the fridge. Back soon. J._

He gets up and showers, vaguely remembering Jensen’s threats to throw him out and grinning to himself. Jensen clearly hadn’t had the heart to make him get up, and the sleep has done him good.

He’s at the kitchen table, eating reheated pizza and talking to Gen on the phone, when he hears Jensen’s key in the lock. ‘Gotta go,’ he says into the phone. ‘I’ll be back in a while.’

‘Hey,’ Jensen says, coming into the kitchen and slipping out of his coat, throwing it over a chair before coming up to Jared and leaning down for a kiss. They linger over it, Jensen licking at Jared’s lips and slipping his tongue into Jared’s mouth.

‘Hey yourself,’ Jared says when they finally pull apart. ‘Sorry about this morning. I just couldn’t get my eyes open.’

‘It’s fine,’ Jensen says. He looks tired, but he’s smiling. ‘I thought you might want to get home to the dogs.’

Jared’s not entirely sure what to say to that. He takes another bite of pizza. ‘I just spoke to Gen,’ he says. ‘They’re fine.’

‘We should talk, yeah?’ Jensen says, sliding into the chair next to Jared’s.

Jared nods. ‘I guess. Unless you’d rather go back to bed.’

‘Tempting,’ Jensen says with a grin, reaching over to ruffle Jared’s hair, and Jared’s heart lifts a little. Jensen gives him a quick kiss. ‘You first?’ he asks.

Jared shakes his head, nervous again. ‘No, you.’

‘Yeah, okay.’ Jensen takes a deep breath. ‘I’m crazy about you, Jay. You know that, right?’

Jared nods, unable to look away from Jensen’s face. ‘I think so, yeah.’

‘Trust me, kid. I’d do anything for you.’

‘I think you already demonstrated that,’ Jared says with a small laugh.

‘When I was… fuck, Jared, when you were missing, it was like the worst possible thing that could ever happen to me. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t sleep, kept imagining the worst, you know?’

Jared nods, throat too tight to speak.

‘People kept telling me to hold on, to not lose hope, but I could tell they were pitying me. Like they knew you were never coming back, like they knew something I didn’t. But I didn’t believe it. I had to believe you would come back. Fuck, I couldn’t have breathed otherwise.’

‘But?’ Jared asks.

Jensen shakes his head. ‘There’s no but, Jay. Not really. Not about the way I feel about you. But, yeah. We weren’t even together when you left. And…’

‘We were so totally together!’ Jared grabs Jensen’s hand. ‘I told you I was coming back. I told you I was only going away for a while.’

Jensen squeezes his hand. ‘We both know we were on a break, Jared.’

Jared shakes his head, determined to be adamant about it. ‘No. I said we needed time apart.’

Jensen smiles. ‘Which, in other words, means a break.’

‘God, shut up.’ Jared leans over and kisses him. ‘I was an asshole, all right? I shouldn’t have left like that.’

‘Well, whatever. It happened, and I can’t blame you for it. I missed you something fierce, Jared. And then I threw myself into my work, started spending nights at the hospital again.’

‘I was afraid of that,’ Jared says, looking away. It had taken Jensen so long to open up to him, trust that he’d be around, and then Jared had walked away. ‘I’m so sorry, Jen.’

‘Don’t be. It made me think, you know? I didn’t want my life to go back to that. I wanted to be open to seeing people again, living again. Hell, I even went on a date.’

‘What?’ Jared asks, thrown.

‘Someone at work set me up. It didn’t work out,’ Jensen says quickly. ‘I faked an emergency halfway through dinner.’

‘You cheater,’ Jared says, slapping him on the knee. ‘You’re going to be making that up to me for a long time.’

‘Whatever you want,’ Jensen says, leaning in to kiss him. ‘I want you back, Jared. But you have to talk to me, okay? You can’t go running off if things get bad. I can’t… I’m not sure I can deal with that again.’

‘I won’t. I swear I’ll try not to. But you gotta promise not to shut me out, okay? Not like you’ve done this past month.’

Jensen winces. ‘I was just trying to look out for you, Jay. I thought you needed time.’

‘Don’t think for me,’ Jared says gently. ‘I can’t promise things will be great, Jen. I don’t even know how long it’s going to take me to be totally functional again.’ 

Jensen nods. He’s watching Jared carefully, as though he’s afraid Jared will bolt at any moment. ‘At the airport, you said you weren’t—you said you didn’t feel you’d come home. You still feel like that?’

Jared gives him a small smile. Trust Jensen to remember the important stuff. ‘I don’t know,’ he says, trying to be as honest as he can. ‘These last few weeks… I thought a lot about stuff. I saw things that I never… things that made me think. I can’t… I’m not sure I can explain. In a way, it was all so simple when I thought I was helping to solve a mystery. Just another forensics case, you know? I thought I was looking for the identity of a victim, a good person killed by bad guys. And then they took us and it threw me.’

He looks up at Jensen and shrugs his shoulders helplessly. ‘They weren’t… it wasn’t what I was expecting. Those guys are victims too, I think. Sailor—Sirisha—she was a victim of a war crime perpetrated by her own government. It’s a war and no one’s on the side of the victims, and I… I just don’t know.’ He scrubs a hand over his face. ‘If I thought I could change things, I’d go back in a heartbeat.’ He glances at Jensen again. ‘I know you don’t want to hear that.’

Jensen shakes his head. ‘Don’t worry about what you think I want to hear, okay? I want to hear whatever you have to say, Jared. Whatever you’re thinking.’

‘You’re kind of perfect, you know that?’ Jared lets out a small laugh, feeling drained.

‘Nah. I just… I want to help, if I can. And if I can’t… I need you to be able to tell me to stay away.’

‘I don’t want that,’ Jared says, resolute. ‘I need… I need time to sort things out in my head, but I don’t… I don’t want you to stay away, Jensen. I need you to help me, but I also need to figure some stuff out for myself. I know you think I’m just some idiot kid, but I have a brain, you know.’

‘I don’t think that,’ Jensen protests. ‘You’re brilliant, Jared. It’s one of the reasons I…’

He stops, and Jared smiles. ‘You going to finish that sentence?’

And Jensen, to his credit, actually does.

 

~end


End file.
